


Ta'burni

by aeoleus



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Ishbalan | Ishvalan, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Ishbal | Ishval, Ishbalan Character(s) | Ishvalan Character(s), Ishbalan | Ishvalan Alphonse Elric, Ishbalan | Ishvalan Edward Elric, Ishbalan | Ishvalan Trisha Elric, Ishval Civil War, in which we discuss imperialism and war, yeehaw cowboys its AU time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:35:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27765346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeoleus/pseuds/aeoleus
Summary: Eshkhan and Atal El-Rizq are born to a single mother in the small Ishvalan village of Akhmet. Much like the rest of their people, Executive Order 3066 is their destruction.If the two seriously-injured children that appear suddenly in Resembool days after Akhmet is systemically terminated look curiously like them, with sun-dark skin and light hair and golden eyes,  it's simply a coincidence.Nothing else.
Relationships: Alphonse Elric & Edward Elric, Alphonse Elric & Edward Elric & Trisha Elric
Comments: 148
Kudos: 459





	1. give me arms to pray with

**Author's Note:**

> I told myself I wouldn't write for FMAB. I lied. I ADORE Ishvalan AUs, and wanted to take my own crack at world-building for Ishval!
> 
> All non-English spoken is Arabic, and the names are a mixture of Arabic, Aramaic, Assyrian, Persian, and Armenian :) I'll provide a glossary for words in the end notes. 
> 
> Thank you so much to @agentcalliope (tumblr and ao3) for beta-ing and correcting my incredibly rusty Arabic!

* * *

Eshkhan El-Rizq, five-and-three-quarters years old, _not_ just five, thank you _very_ much, doesn’t remember his father very well. 

It doesn’t bother him so much. Mama is always telling him that his father loves him very much and that he’ll come back one day, and that until then, she’ll love Eshkhan and Atal enough for the both of them. But Khal Ahiqar always raises an eyebrow when Mama says this and looks silently away, so Eshkhan is not sure what to make of it, even when Khal Eashoa backs Mama up. 

What he does remember is faded, blurry, and hard to reach, like the old black-and-white picture of Mama’s Mama and Baba that she keeps high on a shelf in the kitchen.

He remembers that his father didn’t look much like everyone else in the village. He remembers long, yellow hair kept pulled back in a pony-tail. He remembers tanned skin that wasn’t nearly as dark as Mama’s or Atal’s. He remembers golden eyes. Nothing like the shined red of the rubies that encrust the temple altar, the bright red of cousin Cyra’s favorite dress, the light, flecked red of Atal’s wide, round eyes, or the deep, thick red of the liquid that’s dripping down Mama’s forehead, getting caught on her long, dark eyelashes. 

“Mama?” Eshkhan stares up at his mother in horror as she staggers into the house, one hand trying to stem the flow of blood from her head, the other clutching a wailing Atal to her chest. 

“Tsira- _Tsira!_ ” Khal Eashoa leaps up from his desk and helps Mama down onto the floor.  
  
Atal wriggles out of her grasp and collapses on the carpet next to her, crying loud enough to shake the walls. 

“What happened?” Khal asks. He pulls off his sash and attempts to press it to Mama’s forehead, but Mama glares at him so hard, one eye swollen half-shut, that he puts it down, sighs, and turns to Eshkhan. “Go get clean rags from the kitchen, please, and some water-” 

Eshkhan nods once, voice caught in his throat, and takes a step towards the kitchen, but Atal screams as he moves away, arms reaching out for him. Eshkhan has _never_ been able to say no to his baby brother, so he hoists him up on his hip, though he’s far too big for it, and takes him with him into the kitchen in search of cloth for Mama. 

“Hush, Atal, it’s alright.” Eshkhan whispers. Atal just weeps and buries his face in Eshkhan’s shoulder. He carries his brother back into the living room and hands the rags and small jug of water to Khal, who’s talking to Mama in a low, angry tone. 

“-shouldn’t have been traveling to Sada _alone,_ Tsira, the Amestrian-” 

“It was a lone soldier, not an alchemist or a regiment,” Mama says wearily, and sucks in a sharp breath as Khal wets a rag and presses it to her head. The white of the cloth comes away corrupted with red and brown, and Eshkhan feels his stomach twist.

Atal whimpers and shoves his fists into his eyes. 

“A child, really. Maybe five summers older than Cyra.” Mama says, like she’s holding back a laugh, or maybe a sob. “Saw that I was alone with Atal and thought he’d have some fun.” 

“This isn’t _funny_ _,_ Tsira,” Khal growls. 

“I never said it was, my dear _šaqīq,_ but what is there to do?” 

Khal lets out a noise of frustration when he dabs at the wound again and it still comes away dripping with the red. “Tsira, it’s still bleeding.”

“I’ll be fine.” 

“If you would just let me try the Alkahestry I learned-” 

_“I’ll be fine_ _.”_ Mama repeats sharply. 

“And if I can’t stop the bleeding?” Khal throws up his hands. “What am I to do? Just let you d-” He cuts off abruptly and looks back at Eshkhan. “ _Habibi,_ can you and Atal go get Cyra from school?” 

Atal lets out a hoarse sob, obviously upset by the idea of leaving the house, and Mama makes a noise and pushes aside Khal Eashoa, holding out her arms for Atal. Atal throws himself at her, and Eshkhan can see red-crusted blood dried at the very top of his white-blonde hair. 

“Oh, my baby,” Mama runs her hand up and down his shaking back. “My love, we’re safe now. We’re safe, I promise. Breathe deep, Atal.” 

Atal takes a heaving breath, lets out one final sob, and settles against Mama’s chest. 

“We’re safe in the village, yes?” Mama asks him kindly. 

“B-but-”

“Atal, my love, who lives in the village?”

“Y-you,” Atal says hesitantly, knotting the ends of Mama’s light pink head-wrap around his hands. “And Khal Ahiqar, a-and Cyra, and Eima Samiah, and, and-” 

“And who else?” Mama prompts. Khal Eashoa silently kneels down next to her and begins to wrap her forehead in a clean white cloth. 

Atal turns his head and looks at Eshkhan with those wide red eyes, so unlike the sandy gold Eshkhan sees when he makes faces at himself in the well. 

“Brother.” Atal says quietly. 

“And would your brother ever let harm come to you?” Mama asks gently. 

Atal shakes his head.

“That’s right.” Mama puts him down. “As long as your brother has you, you’re safe. Do you understand, Atal?” 

“Yes, Mama,” Atal says, though his voice wavers. 

“There’s my little hero,” Mama smiles; there’s blood on her teeth. “Now, can my two strong, brave boys run over and pick up your cousin from school? I’m sure she’d enjoy your company on the way home.” 

“Yes, Mama!” Eshkhan says, and tugs Atal out the door and into the blinding late-afternoon sun. 

* * *

Cyra is late coming out of her classes. She _always_ is. She stays back and chats with her friends _forever,_ and comes home so late she almost never has to help make dinner. Eshkhan scowls at the small sea of big kids, trying to find Cyra’s red-ribboned braids. When _he_ goes to school, he’ll leave right after class is done and go home and help cook, because what kind of cousin leaves their poor, defenseless, younger cousin to cut all the peppers by themselves? A monster, that’s who, a _real-life monster_ in double braids-

Atal spots her first and brightens, waving vigorously at her.

Cyra eyes them, says something to her little group of friends, and hurries over, her eyebrows furrowing. “Atal? Eshkhan? Why are you-” Cyra stops suddenly. She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and opens them again. “They’re fighting, huh?” 

“Yeah.” Eshkhan says dully. He’d tried to get the blood off of Atal's head on the walk over, but as the sun drops below the temple, it sets Atal’s hair aflame into a blinding white-gold, and the dark specks become even more apparent. 

Cyra sighs and takes Atal’s hand in hers as they set off down the road towards home. “What about this time?” 

“Mama got hurt.” Atal’s voice wavers again. “They-they threw rocks-” 

“Rocks?” Cyra’s eyes widen. “Atal, are you hurt?”

“No, I checked.” Eshkhan says. His stomach hurts again. He wishes he could take Cyra’s other hand, but she’s holding her writing tablet and chalk in that hand, and he’s _not_ a baby, he doesn’t need to be comforted like Atal does. Not even when a soldier dressed in cold, distinct blue passes them and narrows his eyes, letting one hand rest on the butt of his gun.

Cyra scowls and grabs Eshkhan’s hand anyways, shoving her tablet up into the crook of her arm so that she can tightly grasp his fingers. She hurries them past the soldier and mutters a swear under her breath, spitting on the ground.

Atal gasps, thoroughly scandalized. “Cyra!” He scolds. “You shouldn’t say that! Khal Ahiqar would be so upset with you-” 

“But Khal Ahiqar isn’t here, is he?” Eshkhan says crossly, poking his head around around Cyra’s skirt to wrinkle his nose at his brother. 

“And what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.” Cyra says, chin tilted up, swinging her head so that her braids swing with her. 

“What won’t hurt me?” A deep voice rumbles behind them.

Eshkhan freezes to the spot, and sees Cyra and Atal do the same out of his peripheral vision. They slowly turn to find Khal Ahiqar standing behind them in his full temple ceremonial dress, eyebrows raised. 

“H-hey, Ammu,” Cyra says, false cheer injected into her nervous voice. “We were just-” 

“Uh, we were walking home from school!” Eshkhan supplies, and his uncle’s eyes turn on him, red and unforgiving. 

“And talking about?” Khal’s eyebrows raise even higher, if at all possible. 

“N-nothing!” Atal stutters, then sticks out his lip, his eyes watering. “Mama and I got hurt by a ‘Mestrian!”

“What?” Khal demands, immediately dropping down to his knees to pat down Atal for injuries. He finds the blood in his hair and gasps. “Atal, are you hurt?” 

“No,” Eshkhan and Cyra chorus as Atal dials up the crocodile tears and looks close to wailing again.

“Mama was,” Atal says tremulously, and Khal narrows his eyes, hoists Atal up to his hips, and immediately takes off towards the house. 

“Hurry up,” he says sharply behind him, and Cyra gives Eshkhan a wide-eyed glance before they hurry down the road after their uncle, the sun setting vibrant gold and red behind them. 

* * *

  
By bedtime, the wound on Mama’s forehead is just a small white bandage over her eyebrow. She pulls the blankets up over Atal’s shoulder and leans over, pressing a kiss to Eshkhan’s nose. He wrinkles it at his mother, but doesn’t push her off. 

“Did you say your prayers, my little prince?” Mama whispers, and Eshkhan nods. He’d even corrected Atal when he stumbled on his pronunciation. 

“Good job!” Mama praises, and presses another light kiss between his eyes, then makes to get up off their bed. 

“Mama,” Eshkhan says, as Mama seems about to leave.

“Yes, my love?” 

“Khal said- Khal said you shouldn’t have walked alone today.” 

“He’s just worried about me, _habibi._ Nothing for you to be concerned about.” 

“But you shouldn’t have walked alone!” Eshkhan insists. 

“I won’t walk alone again, I promise. How’s that?” Mama asks. 

“You wouldn’t have walked alone if Baba was here.” 

Mama pauses and sits back, wrapping her shawl tighter around her shoulders. “No,” she admits. “probably not.” 

“Why isn’t Baba here?” Eshkhan asks quietly, after checking to make sure Atal is still snoring beside him.

“He’s travelling.” Mama sweeps back his hair. “Your hair’s getting long, do you want to cut it-” 

“No!” Eshkhan shakes his head. “Mama, is he coming back?” 

Mama’s hand stills on his forehead. “He will.” She says, her voice measured. “He’ll come back, Eshkhan, I promise.”   
  


* * *

  
Eshkhan may not remember much about his father, but he remembers how well he and Khal Eashoa got along. They’d be awake all hours of the night, talking, laughing, debating, scratching away at their desks. 

His father’s handwriting is nothing like Khal’s careful script. It is small and hurried, and words are blacked out nearly every third sentence. It’s not Ishvalan, either; that much, Eshkhan can tell in the low lamplight. 

While they know how to speak Amestrian, reading it is a different story altogether. Mama had taught them the Amestrian alphabet ages ago, borrowing Cyra’s tablet to show them how the foreign lines- all weirdly disconnected from each other- made sounds not unlike their own characters, but Eshkhan has never really tried to read full words and sentences. 

He squints and sounds out the first character on the page- a looping circle with a small tail- “A“

He can still hear the adults outside. Surely, they think he’s asleep, curled up next to Atal in bed. If they thought otherwise, if they knew he had snuck into Khal Eashoa’s study, they wouldn’t be talking like this- voices sharp and angry, swears punctuating the ends of their outbursts. 

Eshkhan takes a deep breath and traces his fingers over the next character- sharp lines that intersect at the bottom. “L” 

“Sada’s fallen, Tsira,” Khal Ahiqar says, barely-concealed rage straining at the edges of his words. “What do you think happens next? Do you think they’ll leave us alone? They’ll simply pass over Akhmet out of the goodness of their shriveled, black hearts?”

“No, but we already have soldiers here, Ahiqar.” Eashoa says wearily. “What difference does it make if they send more?” 

A curved character. “C” 

“All the difference in the world!” Ahiqar explodes. “This is _our_ homeland, and their occupation is-“

“We have no choice.” Mama interrupts, and her voice is hard in an unfamiliar way that makes Eshkhan pause as his fingers trace the fourth letter- (“H”). “We _must_ abide. What else is there to do?”

“Get the children out, at least! We’re close to the border- maybe we could get them to Resembool-“ 

“And then what?” Mama asks sharply. “It is true that Eshkhan inherited his father’s looks- Ishvala must have wanted him to be able to hide, if needed- but Atal and Cyra? Brother, their Ishvalan blood runs too strong. There is nowhere they can hide in that country where they won’t be found.” 

(“E”) 

“And of the boys’ father?” Eashoa asks Mama. “It’s been two years. Could he not get the children out of here?”

“It’s the absolute least he could do, after abandoning you and the children.“ Ahiqar says bitterly. 

(“M”) 

“He didn’t abandon us,” Mama says, but her voice doesn’t sound as sure as it usually does. “He’s just traveling.” 

“Where?” 

“I-I don’t know.” 

(“Y”)

Silence. Someone sniffles, a chair creaks. 

“We have to abide,” Mama says, and her voice sounds thick. “We have no other choice. And maybe- maybe once the protesting calms down- they’ll pull back, and we’ll be left alone.” 

“Maybe, Tsira,” Eashoa says quietly. 

_Alchemy_. 

Eshkhan pulls the lamp closer to the pages, and he begins to read with a desperate fervor. 

* * *

Temple is boring, as it always is. Elder Abdes drones on for so long that Atal falls asleep, snoring softly against Cyra’s shoulder. Eshkhan wishes he could do the same, but Khal Ahiqar is assisting today, and Mama would be so disappointed if he didn’t pay attention. It’s at least a little more exciting to watch his uncle sit by the altar, back ram-rod straight, head lifted to the gold sun painted on the ceiling, eyes fixed and unmoving. 

When Elder Abdes calls the final convocation, Atal wakes with a start and stretches, clapping a hand over his mouth to stifle a yawn. His sash slips down his shoulder as he does, and Mama smiles, adjusting it for him. 

“Did you not sleep well last night, my love?” She asks absent-mindedly, running her fingers through his hair.

Atal freezes and makes wide, desperate eyes at Eshkhan. Eshkhan shakes his head vigorously and Atal smiles sweetly at their mother. He and Atal had been up far later than they were meant to be. Eshkhan had finally stumbled his way through Baba’s first manuscript, and had explained all the principles to Atal. They’d even stolen a bit of Cyra’s chalk to practice drawing circles on the ground in the study. 

“No, Mama, I’m okay.” He says, doe-eyed. “Can we go to the market to get sweet buns? Mama, please?” 

Eshkhan widens his own eyes and sticks out his lip, and Cyra does the same, fluttering her eyelashes up at her.

Mama snorts and pushes their faces away. “You little devils,” she chuckles. “Yes, we can go get sweet buns.” 

* * *

The market is always bustling after Temple, and today is no exception. Atal hangs onto Mama’s skirt as she gracefully weaves through the crowds, greeting elders and friends alike with a wide smile on her face. Eshkhan is content to follow Cyra, making sure he has at least one eye on her red ribbons. 

“Eshkhan!” A voice calls, and Eshkhan turns to find Eima Samiah waving at him from her booth.

Eshkhan glances over at Cyra; she’s stopped to talk with the boy at the tea booth, and her cheeks are glowing a bright pink as the boy pours her a cup of tea, so he has at least twenty minutes before she moves again. 

“Good morning, Eima,” Eshkhan says politely, bowing.

Eima smiles at him and reaches over the counter to ruffle his braid. “Your mother raised such considerate children!” She says, and Eshkhan feels his cheeks flush. 

“She doesn’t seem to think so,” he mumbles, thinking about the dressing-down he’d received not three days ago for forgetting to feed the chickens. 

“No mothers do, _habibi._ Here, don’t tell her-” Eima hands him a kebab, right off the grill. It smells of slightly-burnt peppers and fragrant spices, and his stomach growls.

Eshkhan grins and bows again. “Thank you, Eima!” He yells as he runs off with the kebab, fully intending to eat the whole thing before Mama catches him and makes him share with Atal and Cyra, and- 

He runs headfirst into a solid blue mass and ends up sprawled on the dusty ground of the marketplace. 

Eshkhan blinks up at the blue mass, head reeling. He can taste blood in his mouth, and the sharp copper overtakes any of the spices of the kebab. The blue mass looks back down at him, and it has a _face_ \- pale skin, dark, dark, hair, even darker eyes. 

“Watch where you’re going, kid,” The blue mass growls in Amestrian, blocking out the sun. Eshkhan stares up at it, feeling his voice caught in his throat, gravel scraping his elbows, his lungs becoming smaller- 

“Leave him alone!” Cyra stomps in between the blue mass and him, braids swinging. “You gonna bully a child? Is that what the Amestrian military is here for?” 

“Watch your _tone_ , little girl-” 

“Watch _yourself_.” Cyra snaps back. She roughly pulls Eshkhan off the ground, not letting go of her tight grip on his arm as she marches him away from the soldier and into the crowd. 

“Cyra-” 

“Hush, Eshkhan,” 

“But Cyra-” 

Cyra doesn’t stop until they’re in front of the bakery and she deposits him in front of Mama, who’s holding a steaming bag of sweet buns in one arm, and Atal in the other. 

“Cyra? Did something happen?” Mama asks. 

“A soldier was messing with him.” Cyra says, voice tight, and a look of understanding passes over Mama’s face. 

She puts Atal down and kneels in front of Eshkhan. “Eshkhan, are you alright?” Mama asks softly, hand resting on his cheek, and Eshkhan bursts into tears. 

“Eima Samiah gave me a kebab, and I lost it when the soldier knocked me over!” He wails. 

Mama’s face is surprised for a second, before she lets out a sigh and wipes the tears from his eyes. “Okay, my love. You’re safe now. You’re safe.” Mama murmurs. She hoists him up and settles him on her shoulder like he’s a baby again, but Eshkhan doesn’t protest.

He just buries his head in the excess drape of her head-wrap- a soft yellow today, like the flowers that bloom on the cacti in the summer- and tries to block out the sounds and sights of the market.

* * *

  
Khal Eashoa and Mama are doing the dishes from dinner when there’s a loud swear from the living room, and Eshkhan looks up from his card game with Atal. 

Cyra is sitting on the floor, her writing tablet broken in pieces in front of her and an entirely annoyed expression on her face. “I dropped it on accident!” She throws her hands up in the air. “Now what am I supposed to do? I have school tomorrow morning!” 

Khal Ahiqar looks up from his holy texts to raise an eyebrow at her. “You should have been more careful, Cyra. Go buy another one.”

Cyra scowls at him. “I don’t have enough money to buy a new one. _And_ it’s past curfew.” 

“And what of your allowance?” 

“It’s gone.” 

“Spent on?” 

“Tea,” Eshkhan supplies his uncle, when Cyra fails to respond. 

Cyra drags a single finger across her neck in warning. Eshkhan sticks his tongue out at her. 

“Tea?” Khal frowns. “When I make tea you never have any!”

“It’s not the tea, Khal,” Atal adds, giggling. “It’s _Peroz._ ” 

“Atal!” Cyra yelps, her face flushing. 

“Who’s Peroz-?” 

“The tea-boy.” Eshkhan wiggles his eyebrows, and Cyra growls and launches herself at him. Eshkhan dodges her attack and crawls under Khal’s desk. 

“Baba!” Cyra yells in the direction of the kitchen. “I’m being bullied!” 

“Do you deserve it, _binti?”_

“Yes!” Atal and Eshkhan chorus, and Cyra lets out a yell of frustration that makes Khal Eashoa’s deep laugh and Mama’s higher chuckle echo from the kitchen. 

“Cyra, Cyra, listen,” Eshkhan scoots back out from under the desk. He and Atal have been practicing some arrays for a couple of months now, might as well try them now. “Do you still have your chalk, or did you break that, too?” 

“I still have it, you brat.” Cyra says, but hands him the chalk anyways. “Why?” 

Eshkhan ignores her in favor of breaking the chalk in half and handing the other portion to Atal. Eshkhan draws the circle, just a little bigger than the broken tablet, and Atal carefully adds in the sigils. Eshkhan grabs the broken board and places it in the middle of the circle, and turns to Atal. 

“Ready?” He asks, and Atal grins, placing his hands on the array. Eshkhan touches his hands to the edges, and the array glows a bright, blinding blue. Cyra yelps and moves back, and Khal Ahiqar makes a startled noise. The glow dies down, and in the middle of the circle sits a perfectly whole writing tablet. 

Cyra’s jaw drops. She scrambles up and grabs the tablet, turning it over in her hands as if inspecting it for cracks, but she finds none. 

“Alchemy?” She asks, hushed, and Eshkhan grins at her. 

“Me ‘n Atal have been practicing.” He says proudly. 

“Alchemy is- it’s an abomination!” Khal Ahiqar says, horrified.

Eshkhan feels his smile falter. Khal Eashoa and Mama come in from the kitchen, and Mama gasps. 

“Boys!” She says, and the rest of the smile falls directly off Eshkhan’s face. “Where did you learn this? Did your father teach you?” 

“Our father?” Eshkhan scowls. “How can someone who’s not here teach us? We taught ourselves from his books.” 

“Oh my,” Mama says, and then swoops down, kissing their heads. “that’s wonderful! He would be so proud of you!” 

“Tsira!” Khal Ahiqar says sharply. “It is against Ishvala’s commands, you know this as well as I do!” 

“So is all of my work, brother,” Khal Eashoa says dryly. “you know this as well as I do, too. It’s wonderful, boys. Thank you so much for fixing Cyra’s tablet. Why don’t you three run along and play for a while?” 

“But Baba-” 

“Now, Cyra.” 

Cyra narrows her eyes at her father, but drags the boys down the hall to their bedroom anyway.   
  


* * *

The adults continue arguing in hushed tones long after the sun has set, and Atal is snoring in bed. Cyra sits against the wall, head tilted up, the moon illuminating her white hair. 

“Cyra?” Eshkhan whispers, throwing off his covers to crawl over to her. “Why are all the adults so worried?” 

Cyra sighs and pulls her legs to her chest. “It’s complicated, Eshkhan.”

“I’m not a _baby._ You can tell me.” He says stubbornly. He turned six last month. He’s practically a teenager at this point. 

“I know, Eshkhan.” Cyra leans over to tweaks his braid with a wry smile. “I know. Okay, listen, you know all the soldiers that have been around?” 

Eshkhan nods. It seems like he can’t go five feet outside the house these days without catching sight of a blue coat. 

“They don’t like us very much.” Cyra says quietly. “They don’t want us around.” 

Eshkhan stares at his cousin as the words settle in his brain. “They- they want to hurt us?” 

Cyra nods slowly. “They do. But Baba and Ammu Ahiqar and your Mama are going to keep us safe, I promise. If they can’t do it, I’m gonna keep you safe. Eshkhan, I need your help, though.” 

“With what?” 

“If I can’t keep you two safe, you have to keep Atal safe. Do you promise?” 

Eshkhan glances behind him; Atal is hugging his pillow to his chest, and his hair is flopping over his eyes. 

“I’ll keep him safe, Cyra.” He whispers, and it feels like a swear. 

“Okay, Eshkhan.” Cyra says softly. “Come on now, get into bed.” 

That night, explosions rock the house. Eshkhan, huddled up to his baby brother in bed, sleeps through all of them.   
  


* * *

When Eshkhan drags himself out of bed the next morning, Atal trailing behind him with one hand fisted in his tunic, Cyra is sitting in the living room, arms crossed, and eyes red and swollen. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be at school?” Eshkhan mumbles, suppressing a yawn. 

“Yes.” Cyra says shortly. 

“Cyra, don’t be like that.” Khal Eashoa says reprovingly from the kitchen. “You know why you can’t go.” 

“So Amestris gets to tell us when we can leave our house, when we can leave our village, and now they get to stop us from going to school?” Cyra throws her hands up in the air. “What are they going to take from me next? My life?” 

“Cyra-”

But Cyra has launched herself up and stomped down the hallway. A second later, a door slams, and Khal Eashoa winces. 

“Come on, boys, there’s porridge on the stove.” He says wearily, rubbing his forehead. 

“Why can’t Cyra go to school?” Atal asks as Eshkhan ladles out porridge for him. 

“It’s not safe right now.” Khal says. “I told her I would get her lessons for her, but she’s very upset with me.” 

“The Amestrians aren’t letting her go to school?” Eshkhan asks.

“Well, not exactly, but the streets aren’t so safe, right now. Cyra can go back to school when all of this is over.” 

“When _is_ it going to be over?” Atal grumbles into his bowl. 

“I’m not sure, _habibi,_ ” Khal says lightly. “But we’ll persevere until then. Say, will you two show me more of your arrays today? It was amazing, what you did yesterday!” 

Atal immediately brightens, and Eshkhan grins at his uncle.   
  


* * *

  
When Mama comes to tuck them in that night, her eyes are swollen like Cyra’s were. 

“Did you say your prayers, my little prince?” Mama whispers.

“Yes, Mama,” Eshkhan says, though he didn’t really pay attention as he did. 

“Alright, my love. Sleep well. I’ll see you in the morning.” Mama presses a kiss between his eyes. 

Eshkhan grabs her wrist before she can leave. “Mama, is everything okay?

“Oh, yes. I’m sorry, I just had a hard day.” 

“Did the soldiers bother you again?” 

“No, no.” Mama smiles softly at him, though it looks weird with her eyes all bloodshot. “I was safe. We’re going to stay safe, okay? I promise.” 

“Okay, Mama. I love you.”

 _“Ta’burni,_ my love. Now go to sleep.” 

She presses a final kiss to his forehead, then leaves the room, shutting the door quietly.

Eshkhan turns on his side, huddles into Atal’s shoulder, and stares at the crescent moon out the window until his eyes feel heavy, and he finally closes them, giving into the darkness.   
  


* * *

He wakes to a siren, an explosion, and a blood-curdling scream. Eshkhan forces his eyes open, shooting straight up in bed. 

“B-brother?” Atal’s hand snakes around Eshkhan’s wrist. His eyes are wide with terror. 

Eshkhan shakes his head. “Hold on, Atal.” He whispers, throwing off the covers. 

But before he can move, the scream starts again, and the house shakes. There are voices outside the door, there’s screaming outside the house, and Eshkhan sees a bright flash of light outside the window. 

The door bursts open, but Eshkhan doesn’t see who it is- there’s a rumble above them, and he looks up in time to see a fracture spread along the ceiling, pieces of it beginning to crumble off. Eshkhan dives over Atal, who's screaming in his ear, as the split widens with a sickening _crack_ , and the roof falls. 

And Eshkhan El-Rizq, six-and-one-fourth years old, doesn’t see much of anything after that. 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Khal- Maternal Uncle  
> Ammu- Paternal Uncle  
> Baba- Dad  
> šaqīq- Brother  
> habibi- a term of endearment, commonly used for children  
> Eima- Auntie  
> binti- daughter  
> Ta'burni- "You bury me"- an expression of deep love.


	2. instead of ones that hold too tightly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter brought to you by: finals weeks, a massive migraine, my beta cursing me out, and the songs 100 Years by Florence + The Machine and Foreigner's God by Hozier on repeat. 
> 
> thank u VERY much to @agentcalliope (tumblr and ao3) for supporting me in my never-ending quest to continuously procrastinate on every project I have by starting new ones
> 
> ALSO: some TWs for this chapter- essentially the aftermath of Akhmet's destruction is described in detail. If you'd like to skip that part, start reading at "Sara leans her head back against the cool stone of the house and shuts her eyes- just for a second, just to catch her breath- and she hears it."

* * *

Akhmet is burning. 

Dark, thick smoke billows up from destroyed homes, filling Sara’s mouth with an acrid taste that she knows she won’t be able to get rid of, no matter how much water she drinks when she gets back to base. That, she knows from experience. 

A fault line cracks through the market, leaving carts overturned, their contents spilled out onto the dust half-burnt and trod upon. As they carefully pick through it, walking down the main road to the heart of the village, the smoke intensifies. Yuriy shrugs off his jacket, thoroughly douses it with precious water from his canteen, and hands it to her, the look on his face brokering no argument. 

“Are your lungs somehow less corruptible?” Sara raises an eyebrow at her husband, but takes the jacket anyways and ties it around her face. 

“No,” Yuriy spots a dusty hand sticking out from behind a cart. He leans down and presses two fingers to the exposed, bloodied wrist, and his head dips further down. When he turns back, his eyes are void of any emotion at all. “yours are just more important to me.” 

Sara doesn’t respond. Can’t. The familiar smell pervading the air is making her gag. She shuts her eyes for a second and prays to any god that will hear her that the people whose bodies are currently making the air thick with the scent of burnt flesh and sizzling blood died quick, painless deaths. The stench won’t leave her nose. Not for days. Sara knows that from experience, too. 

There isn’t room to feel the panic, the utter despair that’s creeping up her throat, not in the middle of this ravaged desert. But as they find more bodies, and no more pulses, it becomes harder to shove it down. 

Sara stands back up, shutting the unseeing red eyes of a small girl whose sandal-less feet are cut-up and bruised, and looks up at the sun, shining bright on the devastation as though it’s inhabitants are still enjoying its warmth. 

“I don’t understand,” she whispers. 

“There’s nothing _to_ understand.” Yuriy says, his tone bordering on disgust. He collapses against the scant shade of a house that’s half-caved in and shoves his hands in his eyes.

Sara sighs and sits down next to him. She pries his hands off his head, where it seems that he’s attempting to pull his hair out by the root, and curls her fingers around his. She silently studies the dark calluses on his palms, the dirt under his nails, the half-healed cut on his palm where he nicked himself with his scalpel a few days ago. 

Yuriy is quiet as she does. He doesn’t say anything, even when she pulls down her makeshift mask and presses a kiss to his bloodied knuckles. 

Sara’s glad, in a way, that Yuriy allows the heavy silence to endure. There isn’t anything to say. There is nothing that will legitimize the child’s body lying five feet away from them. Nothing that will make the blood smeared rust over the entrance to the blackened temple acceptable. Nothing that will stop the fire that will continue to spread and eat away at the corpse of this village until nothing beside remains but red-stained sand and bones. To say anything would be to desecrate this mass grave. Nothing less. 

Sara leans her head back against the cool stone of the house and shuts her eyes- just for a second, just to catch her breath- and she hears it. 

A cry. 

Weak, high, like a child. 

Coming from inside the house. 

She snaps her eyes open, heart inside her throat, and scrambles up. 

“Sara-?” Yuriy asks, as she shoves open the heavy door, but she doesn’t answer. 

The house is an odd dichotomy- portions of it are utterly destroyed, the roof caved in, and other parts are completely untouched. A child’s toy lies abandoned on a couch, a half-drunk cup of tea dusted white with fallen dust on a desk, just waiting for its owner to return. Sara skids to a stop in the mouth of the hallway, straining her ears. 

She hears it again. A child, begging in Ishvalan. Weak, breathy and utterly hysterical. She runs, stopping only to confirm that the destroyed body crumpled in the doorway, with twin braids tied off with red ribbon, is well and truly dead, and finds herself in a child’s bedroom, thick with ash and smoke. 

A part of the roof has fallen onto the small double bed, tilted up towards the window on the other side of the room. The cries are louder, and Sara hurries around the bed before her throat closes completely. 

A child stares up at her with bright red eyes. His head is twisted towards her, his dark skin pallid, and Sara immediately understands why he’s crying. Another child is trapped on top of him, and the brunt of the roof has fallen on his back. The child on top’s eyes are closed, and dark blood bleeds sluggishly from a wound on his forehead. 

Sara drops to her knees. The child on bottom’s eyes follow her. She shoves two fingers under the child on top’s neck, and feels nothing. Her stomach drops, but she’s less than surprised. It looks as though he’s been crushed. And she can’t bring herself to despair. Not yet. Not when a pair of red eyes are still staring up at her, awake and alive. 

“Are you alright?” She asks him in clumsy Ishvalan, and the child’s eyes roll back. 

He’s beginning to hyperventilate, she realizes with a start, and she jerks her head away for just a second, intending to call for her husband, only to realize that he followed her in, and is already attempting to lift up the roof. 

The child cries out in sharp pain. Sara puts a soothing hand on his forehead, at the very least thankful that he has the room in his lungs to do such a thing. 

“I can’t- I can’t lift any further-” Yuriy grunts. “You have to pull him out.” 

“No, no- my brother-” The child mumbles, shaking his head. 

“I know,” Sara says softly. “But you need to come out, and your brother is gone, and-”

“No!” The child moans. “No, no, he’s alive! I felt him breathe! Please, _please-_ “

Sara feels that desperation climb its way back up her throat. She makes to pull him, ignoring his increasingly despairing cries, when the body on top gives a soft groan and turns its head. 

“Fuck!” Sara swears, and immediately puts the child down, grabbing at the shoulders of the child on top. Yuriy is gasping with the exertion of holding up the roof, and there is no time to worry about spinal injuries- not when Sara is not fully convinced this child is even really _alive_ \- 

She gets the child out and lays him on the floor, and grabs the other one just as Yuriy lets out a yell and drops the roof again. 

She cradles the wailing child to her chest as Yuriy drops down next to the body of the other boy and presses two fingers underneath his jaw. His head snaps up, his eyes wide, and Sara can barely believe him.

“It’s thready- I can see how you missed it- but it’s there. He’s alive. He’s alive.” 

The kid’s alive. Somehow, in the epicenter of death and destruction, both of them are alive.   
  


* * *

The kid on top is gravely injured. His left leg is utterly mangled, having been trapped under the full weight of the roof, while the rest of him was spared by the small miracle of the front portion catching the wall more than his body. 

Yuriy spends hours trying to reconstruct the lower leg, but there are simply not enough medical supplies, and there is not enough resolve in the child’s little body. In the end, it’s the best option to take his leg below the knee. A myriad of black-purple, livid bruises cover his back, and five of his ribs are broken. While Yuriy is sewing up the child’s stump, Sara picks through his abdomen for shards of rib-bone. 

His brother fares far better. He sports some impressive bruising himself from bearing his brother’s weight on his front, and mild burns coat his arm, which was exposed to the fire that ravaged his bedroom. But he’s doing well enough by the time they carry the kid out of the surgical room and place him on a cot that he scrambles out of his own and to his brother’s side. 

“Is he- is he going to be okay?” The kid asks in accented Amestrian. 

Sara scrubs at her face wearily and tucks the thin blanket up around the child’s chin. The smaller boy is looking up at her with a mixture of hope and absolute terror in his red eyes. Odd, Sara thinks, that his brother’s eyes tend towards gold. She kneels down next to him and pulls down her surgical mask. 

“Do you know if you had any family outside Akhmet?” She asks, and the kid’s eyes well up with tears. He shakes his head, and winces when the movement causes him pain. 

“Our father- but I- I haven’t seen him.” 

“In how long?” 

“I-I don’t know. A long time. Do you- do you know where my Mama is?” The kid asks, and it’s like he’s taken the scalpel she just used to cut her brother open and stabbed it through her ribs. 

She does know where his mother is. She’s in the kitchen of their destroyed house, one hand pointing towards the bedroom, as if, in her final moments, she was trying to reach out to her sons. 

“You need to get some sleep, kid,” she says instead, and pats the cot next to her. The kid’s eyes narrow, like he knows she’s avoiding the question, but the exhaustion pervading his small frame wins out over his paranoia, and he allows Sara to help him into the cot and pull the blanket up. 

She smooths the white-blonde hair off of the bandage on his forehead, and wonders if Winry is in bed right now, too, Den curled up at her side. 

“Do you two have names?” Sara asks, and the kid’s eyes snap open again. 

“Atal,” He says, then pales, clapping his uninjured hand over his mouth. “I shouldn't have told you that.” 

“You shouldn’t-?” Sara stares at him in confusion, then remembers, all at once. “Names are sacred. You’re not meant to tell your name to strangers.” 

The kid- Atal- nods and looks utterly miserable. The fact that his small face is still coated with his brother’s blood does not help. 

“Well, tell you what, my name’s Sara, my husband’s name is Yuriy, and I have a daughter around your age named Winry. Now we’re not strangers anymore.” 

Atal looks somewhat appeased by this. He settles back down, his eyes fluttering closed. “Brother’s name is Eshkhan.” He mumbles. His eyes open for just a second as Sara pulls the blanket up around him. “Do you miss her?” 

“Who?” 

“Your daughter.” 

“Every day.” Sara says softly, as the kid drifts off. “I miss her every day.” 

That night, distant explosions rock the medical tent. The brothers, huddled in the back corner, sleep through every single one.   
  


* * *

Sara finds Yuriy sitting on his cot, staring at a picture of Winry. She’s three in the photo, and her toothy grin is gapped and bright. Her arms are thrown around Den, and her bright blue eyes are squinted in the Resembool sun. 

“Do you think she’s okay?” He asks. His voice breaks, and Sara wants to burst into tears on the spot. 

“I do.” She says instead, and wraps her arms around her husband’s shaking shoulders. “I think she’s giving her teachers hell and terrorizing Pinako’s customers.” 

“She better be.” Yuriy tips her head forward onto her chest. He breathes, and they stay quiet for a few minutes. “Are those boys alright?” 

“Well, as well as two children who’ve lost their family, their village, and nearly their lives overnight can be.” She sighs. Yuriy tugs her down to sit next to him on the cot. “I learned their names.” 

“You did?” Yuriy raises his eyebrows. “Ishvalan names are sacred.” 

“It was a mistake. I gave up ours in return. Atal is the little one. Eshkhan was the one on top. He’s older.” 

“Eshkhan.” Yuriy says. “He was trying to protect his brother, huh?” 

“I think so.” Sara says heavily. “There’s no one to take them. Where are they going to go? Their sector was meant to be completely terminated. If anyone outside our unit learns that they somehow survived-” 

Yuriy’s fingers tighten around her wrist. “I will _not_ sit back and allow those children to be killed.” 

“Neither will I,” Sara says, and tilts her head towards her husband. “We have leave to Resembool coming up. Say, my long-lost childhood friend’s kids need a place to stay. They got injured during a conflict and one of them needs to be outfitted for a prosthetic. D’ya think we got room in the house?” 

Yuriy stills. He slowly brings his head up and when he meets her eyes, his own are still hard, but there’s a small glint of hope, floating somewhere within the oceans of dark blue.

“There’s always room in the house. He says, and Sara smiles- a cracked, tired thing, but a smile all the same- for the first time in weeks.   
  


* * *

They keep a low profile for the next week or so. It’s not as hard as it ought to be, in a military as tightly-run as Amestris’ is. But physicians are in desperately short supply and utterly indispensable, so having a little red cross sewn onto your sleeve almost designates one as above approach, and certainly out of nearly everyone’s chain of command. 

If Ishvala is real, and damnation is real too, then Sara thinks that this war is as close to it that you can get on earth. The white sands run thick with rivers of blood, and the soldiers that spill it seem to grow more disgusted with their hands every day. But they continue on anyways, compelled by orders and apathy and the heavy threat of death to anyone who dares step out of line. 

Blood spills. The sun sets. Soldiers quietly despair. And when the sun rises over the reddened sands the next morning, the cycle begins again. Second verse, same as the first. 

Sara knows the orders. Anyone with at least one Ishvalan parent is to be exterminated. And yet, a week passes, two, and no one says anything about the two children with sun-dark skin and white hair like a beacon sequestered in the corner of the medical tent. 

She’s found, really, that people _want_ to be good. People want to help others, when they can. When they’re allowed to. Some of the soldiers that she treats those weeks almost certainly have the blood of Ishvalan children tattooed into their skin, but somehow, their eyes pass over the peeks of white hair between curtains, and the high, childish cries of pain fall on deaf ears. Extra rations of food begin appearing after dinners, with grunted excuses of, “Cook made too much,” or, “my buddy fell asleep before he could eat”. Uniform items are dropped off- nothing big, just t-shirts that have somehow “shrunk in the laundry”, or extra pairs of socks “that could use some darning”.  
  
Sara wraps a feverish Atal in an old, well-loved sweater a private had slipped into her hands before breakfast, blood still stained rust under his nails and a faraway look in his eyes, and wishes desperately that these men were allowed to be good and kind and gentle, the way they wanted to be. The way they _should_ be. 

Then again, she thinks, as Eshkhan wakes late that night with blown-out eyes and breath ragged, one hand reaching for a leg that’s no longer there, there are many things that are not as they should be. 

“It’s alright,” Sara soothes him, one hand pushing white-blonde hair out of his sweaty face. He’s running a fever, but Yuriy hadn’t seen any signs of terrible infections when he changed the bandages last; it’s probably the child’s body simply reaching its limit, and that, Sara understands all too well. “It’ll pass.” 

“I want- I want my mama,” Eshkhan gasps out in Ishvalan, eyes up towards the ceiling of the tent. He’s burst blood vessels in his right eye, and the bright red surrounds the gold of his iris, as if threatening to drown it completely. “It hurts- _I want Mama!_ ” 

Sara doesn’t cry much these days, but something sharp stings at her eyes. 

“I know.” She says softly. She glances over at Atal and is grateful when she sees that he hasn’t stirred. “I know you do. I’m so sorry, Eshkhan.” 

“Where is she?” He begs, one small hand weakly grasping her wrist as his breathing picks up. “Can you ask her to come? If she knew- if she knew I was hurt, she would come.” 

“I know she would, but she can’t,” Sara lies, preparing a sedative with only a small roil of guilty nausea in her gut. “It’s going to be alright, Eshkhan.” Lie. “Just close your eyes. It'll be better in the morning.” Another lie. 

“Mama- she’ll be here in the morning?” 

“Close your eyes, Eshkhan.” 

Eshkhan barely seems to register the pain of the needle in his arm, and his bloodshot eyes slip closed before Sara can remove it and wipe the blood off his skin. His breathing evens out. Sara pulls the thin blanket up to his bruised shoulders and prays to Ishvala, desperately hopes that he’ll listen to a non-believer, and asks, _protect Your children. Please.  
  
_

* * *

Their leave gets approved. Yuriy slips Atal sedatives with his breakfast and adds it into Eshkhan’s daily medications, only feels vaguely bad doing it, and loads them into the back of their truck once they’ve both nodded off. Sara climbs in after them, and Yuriy stacks a wall several crates deep in front. 

It’s not the most well-thought-out plan. They’re relying on Yuriy’s rank and ability to talk his way out of trouble to not get caught. And if they _are_ caught- Sara has to clap a hand over her mouth to stop a derisive snort. They hadn’t exactly _joined_ the military so much as been conscripted, so a dishonorable discharge is less a threat than it is a reward. 

And if they get caught, and it’s not a dishonorable discharge waiting for them, but a firing squad, well, Sara supposes there are worse causes to die for. 

But the boys. Eshkhan’s sun-golden eyes aside, they are unmistakably Ishvalan. At best, they will be abandoned in the desert. At worst-

Sara isn’t going to think about ‘at worst’. 

The truck comes to an abrupt stop, and Sara shoots a hand out to stop Atal’s lolling head from hitting the crate. 

“Good morning, Sergeant,” Yuriy says cheerfully.

Sara holds her breath. 

“Good morning, Captain.” A deep voice responds. “You’re going on leave?”

“That’s right, going to see the kid! There’s some shuffling, and Sara knows he’s pulling out his wallet to show off his multiple pictures of Winry he’s got stuck in it. “She’s going to be six in a week, isn’t that exciting, Sergeant? Her grandmother says she’s getting into all sorts of trouble. I can’t wait to see how much she’s grown-” 

“Yeah, that’s great, Doc,” The sergeant interrupts hastily. “Anything in the back of the truck?” 

“Just empty crates,” Yuriy sighs, and injects a smidge too much long-suffering exasperation in his voice. “I’m hoping to bring back some supplies- maybe fruits and veggies from Resembool. They have y’all eating gruel, for God’s sake. I’m scared I’m going to have to start treating scurvy if they keep that up.” 

“Alright, no worries, Doc. No Mrs. Doctor Rockbell with you?” 

“She went on ahead last night. Had some errands to run in East City before meeting me at home.” 

“Great. Have a good leave, Doc.” 

“You too, Sergeant!” 

And the truck rumbles on. 

Sara exhales.   
  


* * *

  
When the truck stops again, hours and hours have passed. She’s not sure how long, exactly, but her legs have fallen asleep, and Eshkhan has gotten progressively more and more restless. She’s worried he’s going to wake up for good, so it’s a relief to feel the truck lurch, then roll to a stop. 

The back opens with a loud creak, and a crate is pulled down. Yuriy rests his arms on top of the crate and smiles tiredly at Sara, his face equal parts exhausted and elated. 

“We’re here,” He says quietly, and Atal blinks up blearily at him from where he’s sitting in Sara’s lap, one little fist rubbing his eyes. 

“Where did we go?” He asks sleepily, and Sara drops her head down into his hair, biting back a hysterical laugh.   
  


* * *

  
Eshkhan wakes as they’re transferring him into one of the beds in the procedure room. It’s clear he’s not all there, eyes cloudy with pain and sedative, but he’s still lucid enough to mumble, 

“Atal?” 

“He’s right here, Eshkhan, he’s safe.” Yuriy assures him, adjusting an asleep Atal up on his shoulder so Eshkhan can see him. That’s apparently all Eshkhan needs to know, because he promptly slips right back into unconsciousness. Sara carefully adjusts the new IV in his arm, checks the bag, and pulls the blankets up to his shoulders. 

“You didn’t think to call ahead?” 

Pinako is standing in the doorframe of the procedure room, robe wrapped tightly around her. 

“Hey, Ma,” Yuriy says. “We couldn’t.” 

Pinako seems to take in the boys’ skin, the white hair that’s falling over Atal’s eyes, the distinct empty space where Eshkhan’s left leg should be. Her face is unreadable, and Sara, for one second, is absolutely terrified that she doesn’t know her mother-in-law as well as she thought she did. But then Pinako shuffles over to the cabinet, takes down another blanket, and spreads it over Eshkhan’s still form. 

“I see we have some guests in town,” she says briskly as she does, and Sara feels the last bit of anxiety she had in her stomach deflate. 

“Yeah,” she says wearily. “They’re gonna need to stay a while, Pinako,” 

“This house has plenty of room.” Pinako says. “Come, I’ll set up the guest room for the little one. Winry’s asleep- she has school in the morning. I’ll make sure she stays quiet when she gets up.”   
  


* * *

Everything _burns_. 

That’s all that Eshkhan can think. His chest. His leg. His head. His eyes, his, his, his- 

“Are you awake?” 

Eshkhan forces his eyes open, panic rising his throat, and finds big blue eyes peering at him. He lets out a harsh gasp and scrambles back. A sharp, hot pain shoots up from his left leg, and tears spring to his eyes. 

“Oh! Oh, no- I didn’t mean to scare you! Are you okay? I’m sorry!” Someone is saying in quick Amestrian. There are soft hands on his arms, pulling his hands away from his face. “I’m so sorry! Do you want me to get Mom?” 

“Mama?” He croaks out, and opens his eyes again. 

The big blue eyes are attached to a round, pale face, which has yellow hair pulled into two braids like Cyra wears, but blue ribbons are on the end, not red. 

“Well, no, _my_ mama,” the girl frowns, crossing her arms. “I don’t know where your mama is.” 

“Neither do I,” Eshkhan says, and the tears sting his eyes again. He doesn’t- where are they? Who is this girl? Where’s Mama? Where’s Atal? 

_Where’s Atal?_

His breath is caught in his throat, the girl’s face is getting blurry- 

“Winry?” A familiar voice says sharply. “What are you doing in here?” 

“I just wanted to see if he was awake!” The girl says. “But now he’s upset, I don’t know what I did-” 

“Eshkhan? Eshkhan, can you hear me?” 

There’s a soft hand on his cheek, and it’s almost like Mama’s, except there’s no calluses from cooking all day, carrying supplies home from the market. 

“Mama?” He gasps out. 

“No,” The voice responds. “No, it’s Sara. Can you open your eyes, Eshkhan?” 

  
He doesn’t want to. He really doesn’t want to. 

But he does. 

The blue eyes that meet him are rimmed with red, dark circles underneath. They’re familiar. They’re safe. He thinks. He’s not really sure what _safe_ is, anymore. 

“Good!” Sara praises. “Take some deep breaths, okay?” 

He wants to. But his lungs are constricted, and it _hurts,_ it hurts so bad. 

“I know it does. Just breathe, in and out. Winry, go get your father, please.” 

“But-”

“Now.” 

The girl leaves the room, stomping on her way out, and Eshkhan barely notices in his struggle to get air into his lungs. Sara stays right next to him, breathing quietly with him, and soon, he’s calmed enough to realize several things: 

  1. They’re not in a tent anymore. This room is bright, with windows letting in sunlight, and there’s walls and lights, and an intact ceiling. 
  2. Atal isn’t here.
  3. The blanket over his legs is flat where his left leg is meant to be.



“I-” The panic rises again. “Where- where-? Atal?” 

“You’re alright, you’re alright,” Sara soothes. “Atal is fine. He’s coming right now. He’s safe. You’re safe. You’re in Resembool.” 

_Resembool_. That wasn’t in Ishval. 

“How- why?” 

“You were in danger. We wanted to keep you and Atal safe.” 

“Danger-?” 

Sara turns to him. Her eyes are hard. “What do you remember, Eshkhan?” 

Eshkhan stares at her. It’s hazy, the past few weeks. There are vague, cotton-y memories of laying in a tent, sharp pain radiating from his leg. Before that, he remembers Cyra being angry about not being able to go to school. He remembers eating dinner with Khal Eashoa and Mama. He remembers Mama putting them to bed. He remembers, he remembers, he remembers- 

“Where’s my Mama?” He asks, voice harsher than he’s ever heard himself talk before, and Sara’s eyes don’t leave his face once as she sits on the edge of his bed and takes his hand in hers. Her skin is so pale, compared to his. Like the white sands of the dunes outside the village. 

“Your village-” Sara’s head ducks, so Eshkhan sees nothing but the top of her blonde hair when she chokes out, “It was destroyed. Your mother is gone. I’m so sorry, Eshkhan.” 

“No.” He says. “No, no, that’s not true. You’re lying. You’re lying!” 

“I’m not.” Sara lifts her head again. “I’m so sorry, Eshkhan. We wanted to get you out, you and your brother-” 

“You’re lying!” Eshkhan jerks his hand away from her, the scream ripping from his throat, dragging daggers into his flesh on its way out. “It’s not true! What did you do with her? Where’s my mama? What did you do with my family? _Where’s my mama!?”_

At some point, his Amestrian slips into Ishvalan, ragged and angry, and something bursts in his bruised chest, thrumming with his breaths. 

“Eshkhan, Eshkhan-” Sara’s face is desperate, confused. “Eshkhan, I don’t know that much Ishvalan-”

“Give her _back!_ ” 

“Please, kid, you need to calm down, you’re _really_ injured, you could tear something, _please_ -” 

“Brother?” 

Atal is standing in the doorway. He’s dressed in clothes that barely fit him, and yellowing bruises cover his face, but he’s alive. And whole. Eshkhan counts- one, two, three, four limbs. A rising chest. Red eyes that are wide as they stare at him, hands wringing at the sleeves of a dark blue sweater. 

“Atal.” His voice cracks. “Atal, Mama-” 

Atal’s eyes fill with tears, and Eshkhan somehow knows, somewhere in the very dark recesses of his mind, somewhere that remembered an explosion and screaming and flames, and tucked it away where it could not hurt him, that Sara is not lying to them. 

Sara immediately lifts Atal up to the bed. Atal throws his arms around him, and Eshkhan can feel his little heart beating as he sobs against him, his little lungs heaving choked breaths, beating out a quiet reassurance. _He’s alive. He’s alive. He’s alive._

“It’s going to be okay, Atal,” he whispers, quiet Ishvalan in foreign land. “I promise. I’ll protect you. I’ll protect you.”   
  


* * *

  
Later that day, when Atal is napping on the bed next to Eshkhan, his hand tight around his brother’s, even in his sleep, and Sara is administering another dose of painkillers, Eshkhan clears his throat and asks in a ragged little voice, 

“Will you cut my hair?” 

Sara’s hands still. She puts down the needle and looks up to find Eshkhan staring at her with weary eyes, swollen and bloodshot. The warm gold of his irises reflects almost tarnished in the late afternoon light, and Sara can’t help but feel that the child looks as though he’s aged a decade since this morning. 

“Sorry?” 

“Cut my hair.” Eshkhan repeats. Atal stirs in his sleep, and Eshkhan gently comforts him, running a hand over his hair as though it’s second nature. 

Eshkhan’s hair is a light-spun gold, and it hangs nearly halfway down his back. Sara spent an hour painstakingly detangling it and brushing out blood and debris the night after they found the boys, loath to let him lose any more than he already had. But Eshkhan is already reaching for a pair of scissors on the side table, as if he’s not actually waiting for an answer-

“Wait.” Sara stays his hand. She pulls the scissors away from him. “It’s your hair, Eshkhan. If you want it cut, I’ll cut it. But are you sure?” 

Eshkhan nods once, closing his eyes. “I- it’s what you’re supposed to do. Mama cut her hair when her father died. My uncle when his wife died. You- cut it. When you’re in, in-” Eshkhan’s face screws up, and he looks devastated and frustrated in equal amounts, as though he can’t find the language to say what he wants, and that’s making him even more upset. 

“When you’re in mourning?” Sara supplies gently. 

Eshkhan nods again, and moves so Sara has access to his long braid. 

“How short?” She asks. Eshkhan slowly lifts a hand, sucking in a gasp of pain, to point at the base of the braid. 

Sara makes quick work of it. She carefully shears through the thick braid, and strands fall onto the white sheets. When it’s done, she runs her fingers through Eshkhan’s remaining hair and shakes it loose, then places the braid in his hands. 

He stares at it as though it’s a foreign thing. As though it was never attached to him. His worn-out eyes well up with tears again. 

“I want my Mama,” he rasps out. “I just want my Mama.” 

“Eshkhan,” Sara asks softly, placing down the scissors. “Can I hug you?” 

Eshkhan nods sharply, desperately, and Sara immediately sits down and gathers the child to her. Eshkhan melts against her chest, grabbing at her sweater as he cries. 

“Why- why do they hate us? Why did they kill her? I don’t- I don’t _understand_ -” 

Sara stares out the window at the setting sun turning the sky golden as Eshkhan sobs himself hysterical into her sweater, and wishes she had an answer.   
  


* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listen. I knew Cyra was going to die from the minute I began writing this and YET. i am in mourning for her. i have made like 5 picrew pictures of her bc i just love her that much. RIP.


	3. my heart bends and breaks so many, many times

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> an abbreviated childhood, of sorts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> god i have been waiting SO long to get this one out! have fun!! thank you very much to my beta @agentcalliope (tumblr and ao3)

Eshkhan grows quiet. 

Hot anger and sharp, bitter pain bubbles under the surface of his silence, and boils over in short responses to his brother’s questions. Always in Ishvalan. Never in Amestrian. When he’s not ignoring everyone else in the house, he’s sleeping off the pain from some procedure or another that Yuriy seems to be constantly inflicting on the child. 

It’s difficult to watch. Even more difficult for Sara to explain to her overly-inquisitive daughter, who's been banned from the recovery rooms and automail clinic completely- (not that that stops her from attempting to sneak in when she thinks the adults aren’t looking). 

“Why won’t Eshkhan eat?” Winry’s little eyebrows furrow as she glances over at the full bowl that Yuriy is setting on the counter. “He doesn’t like soup?” 

“I don’t think that’s it, sweetheart,” Sara says wearily, placing Atal’s empty bowl next to it. 

“Then what is it? He doesn’t like Granny’s cooking?” 

“No, probably not that, either.” Sara wraps the bowl and places it in the icebox. Maybe she can convince him to eat it later once everyone has gone to bed. The kid’s turned into an insomniac lately, anyways. 

“Then _what-_ ”

“He’s sad, Winry.” Yuriy says. His eyes are distant as he begins clearing the table. Sara rests a hand on the back of his neck a moment before she begins to help. “He’s gone through some hard things. He and Atal are both very sad.” 

“But Atal eats!” Winry insists. 

“People aren't always sad in one way.” Sara tells her daughter. She hoists her up onto the step-stool by the sink so she can help her father wash the dishes. “Atal is sad in a different way from Eshkhan. It’s not good or bad, it’s just what it is.” 

“Oh.” Winry’s shoulders slump down. “Will they always be sad?” 

“They’ll probably always be a little sad, sweetheart, but not like this. In the meantime, leave Eshkhan alone, alright? He’s still very ill and needs to recover.” 

“Yes, Mom.” Winry heaves a great, dramatic sigh, as though Sara has asked the world of her, and Sara bites back a laugh. 

Ishval is hell and what Amestris is doing there cannot be construed as anything but pure evil; the two broken little boys in the back room are proof of that. But, despite the hellish circumstances that allowed it, Sara is still grateful for whatever little moments she is able to steal with her daughter, before they inevitably are forced to re-enter the fray, and death becomes a close companion yet again.   
  


* * *

Resembool is- it’s- it’s- 

Eshkhan doesn’t know what the word he’s searching for is. Especially not in Amestrian. He’s spoken the language as long as he can remember but it’s always been foreign on his tongue. Heavy, unnatural, clipped; halting syllables and faltering diction. Only for use when absolutely necessary, like reading Baba’s manuscripts, or answering questions from soldiers in blue on the streets, palm sweating as Cyra grips his hand tighter, her voice harsh and cold in ways it never was at home when she told stories and sang as she cooked, and-

“Eshkhan, you’ve got to eat.” 

It’s late, judging by the darkness that’s ascended on the room, the quietness settling on the rest of the house. Sara sounds tired. Eshkhan wishes he was tired, too. But instead, he’s feverish and shaky, and every downward glance at the flat space where his leg should be makes the nausea in his stomach churn hotter and more acidic. 

“Please.” Sara pushes the bowl closer towards him.

Eshkhan eyes the stew and swallows the bile that’s already rising in his throat. It smells of salty meat and potatoes and absolutely nothing like something he wants to force into his unwilling stomach. 

“You haven’t eaten in days. You’re ill again, Eshkhan. You _have_ to eat, or you won’t get better.” 

Eshkhan stays silent for just a moment too long, and Sara pushes her hands into her eyes. Her shoulders shake. Eshkhan can only stare at her, immobilized by the heavy weight of some feeling in his chest that he can’t identify. When she looks up again, her eyes are red-rimmed, and the smile on her face seems too big, spread too thin. 

“Atal needs you,” she says quietly. Her hands worry at the hem of her sweater, like Mama used to do with her shawl when she was thinking.

Eshkhan shoves back a wave of raw, hot grief and blinks away the tears that gather in his eyes. “I’m- I’m-” _asaf,_ he thinks. _Gadeb_ , he thinks next. “I’m tired.” 

“I know, sweetheart.” Sara says. “You just need to eat a little bit, and then you can sleep, alright? Just a few bites. For Atal.” 

Eshkhan picks up the spoon. The stew is heavy and too salty, but he swallows it anyway.   
  


* * *

When he wakes hours later, the nausea in his stomach having come to a boiling point and then surpassed it, heaving meat and potatoes into a basin, gasping for breath, tears pricking at his eyes and every incision in his body pulling with his movements, Sara rubs his back and whispers apologies over and over and over until the sun peeks into the window, pale and cold against the dark sky.   
  


* * *

  
Most mornings, before Atal bounds into the recovery room to climb into his bed, Eshkhan keeps his eyes shut tight and whispers every prayer Mama ever taught him, counting on his fingers to make sure he’s saying them the right amount of times. 

Maybe, maybe, if he keeps them shut long enough, prays hard enough, then when he opens them again, then he will be staring at the tan ceiling of his bedroom, intact and whole, and he’ll finally wake up from this nightmare. Cyra will appear in the doorway to drag him out of bed so he can walk with her to school, and she’ll chatter about all her favorite subjects until Eshkhan’s eyes are glazed over. When he gets back home, Mama will kiss his head and get him breakfast that he’ll eat while Khal Eashoa debates his research with Ahiqar before Ahiqar walks to Temple.

Atal will come into the kitchen rubbing his eyes and cling to Mama’s skirt until he’s awake enough to sit down next to Eshkhan and eat. In the afternoon, Eshkhan will run errands for Mama and play ball in the street, and when Cyra gets home from school, they’ll have dinner and Eshkhan will listen to the adults talk while he plays in the living room with Atal, and when it’s time for bed, Mama will put Atal next to him and pull up the blankets and kiss his forehead, and everything will be as it was. 

But then Atal crawls under his itchy, heavy covers, and presses his tear-stained face to his shoulder, and Eshkhan has to open his eyes and see the white-washed ceiling of the Rockbell home so that he can wrap an arm around Atal’s shoulders and let him cry himself out, and he has to hope that tomorrow is the day he finally wakes up.   
  


* * *

  
Many, many days pass. 

He never wakes up.   
  


* * *

“Are you going to get automail?” 

Eshkhan turns his head. Winry is back. Her hair is braided back into twin buns and she’s wearing a bright red dress. He feels his stomach twist, and clamps his mouth shut, turning away. 

“ ‘Cus, you could.” Winry says.

Eshkhan closes his eyes and wills her to go away. After a few minutes of silence, he opens his eyes again, only to find her sitting on the bed across from him.

She’s swinging her legs, hands on her chin, and staring at him as if he’s a particularly interesting array in one of his father’s manuscripts. 

“Go away.” He says. His voice sounds weird. Thick, raspy. 

Winry crosses her arms. “Your brother is a lot nicer than you.” 

“Okay. _Go away._ ” Eshkhan spits it out in his mother-tongue with as much venom as the gentle syllables will allow, but even that doesn’t do the trick. Winry stays where she is, thoroughly unimpressed. 

“Sorry, I don’t know any Ishvalan.” She says. “How come you know Amestrian?” 

That actually shocks him enough that Eshkhan looks her directly in her bright blue eyes. “I had to. Soldiers came to my village. We had to know it, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to understand them and we could get in trouble.” 

Winry’s face drops. She studies her shoes. “Mom told me. I’m really sorry.” 

“I don’t want your apologies.” It comes out harsher than he means it to. Winry’s eyes grow shiny with tears, and Eshkhan immediately feels awful. Mama would be so disappointed in him, making someone cry. “I- it wasn’t _you._ ” 

“I know,” she insists, rubbing her fist across her eyes. “But I’m sorry, anyways.” 

Eshkhan shrugs, picking at the blankets by his leg. “What’s automail?” he asks, if only to get the girl to stop crying. 

It works. She immediately brightens up, hops off the bed, and runs to the edge of the room. She rummages through a chest and comes back with a metal contraption in the shape of a leg in her arms. “It’s what my granny does!” Winry lays the metal leg down in the area where his left leg should be. “New arms and legs for people who lost theirs.” 

Eshkhan stares at the metal, how it extends out past where his own foot ends, clearly meant for someone far taller than him. He can’t protect Atal if he can’t stand on his own two feet. And maybe it doesn't matter much if one of his feet is metal, so long as he can stand. 

Perhaps he’d have a better chance.   
  


* * *

“Why are we here?” Eshkhan asks dully, staring up at the white ceiling of the recovery room. It’s mid-day; Winry is off at school, and Atal is asleep on the bed next to him, dried tears tracking down his cheeks. It’s okay that he cries so much- or Eshkhan thinks it is. Mama used to say crying helped you feel better when you were upset. 

(Eshkhan isn’t so sure she was right. It seems the more he cries, the worse he feels. Better to just not cry at all so he can comfort Atal.)

“Hmm?” Yuriy’s cold hands still from unwrapping the old bandaging around his stump. 

Eshkhan keeps his eyes steadfastly trained on the ceiling. He’d caught a glimpse of what was left of his leg a few days ago. It’s an ugly thing- ragged, inflamed skin folded over missing muscle and bone. It’d made him sick to his stomach, and he’d spent a good ten minutes hunched over a basin, throwing up everything he’d eaten that day, Sara smoothing back his short hair. 

“Why are we here?” Eshkhan repeats. He knows his Amestrian is pretty good- it's definitely better than Yuriy’s Ishvalan is- so he’s not sure what the doctor is not understanding. Eshkhan hears Yuriy put down whatever he was holding before he pulls Eshkhan’s blanket back up. 

“Because you needed help.” Yuriy crosses his arms. “You and your brother needed help.” 

Eshkhan drags his eyes off the crack in the ceiling and looks at Yuriy. “You’re Amestrian.” 

‘Yes,” Yuriy agrees mildly. 

“And you’re- you’re a soldier.” 

“I’m military, yes.” Yuriy says. “But I’m a doctor, Eshkhan, not a soldier. It’s part of my oath of practice- I’m required to give assistance to anyone that needs it, to the best of my abilities.” 

“But- they killed _everyone_.”

The sentence barely makes it out of his mouth, the end of it staggering out choked and guttural. 

Some days, he still expects the doorbell to ring and for Mama to come through the door and sweep him into a tight hug, pressing her head against his. 

Most days, though, the loss is like a hole at the bottom of the old well-bucket that they kept behind the house. It slowly but surely allows every morsel of energy and patience and _self_ he has to seep away until nothing remains but hollow emptiness and the repeating thought that they’re gone, they’re all gone, everyone’s gone- 

Atal gives a sigh in his sleep. 

Well, not everyone. 

Eshkhan wraps an arm around him and tugs him closer. It’s better, when he can feel Atal’s heartbeat, his little lungs expanding and collapsing. 

“I know.” Yuriy says. His tone is heavy, but his hand on Eshkhan’s shoulder is light. “I make no excuses for my country. They would have killed you, too, if they found you. But Sara and I- well, let’s just say we’re not exactly patriotic. You needed help. We gave it.” 

“How long?” Eshkhan asks, before he can lose the nerve. 

“How long?” Yuriy furrows his brow. 

“How long can we stay?” 

Yuriy stares at him for a moment, and Eshkhan is terrified for a brief second that Yuriy is about to make a snap decision and tell him to get out, _now._

“For however long you need us,” Yuriy says, bewildered, as if this was obvious. “Eshkhan, we’re not kicking you out. We’ve told everyone you’re the children of friends of ours who died in the war. You can stay here until you’re old enough to decide otherwise.” 

It’s Eshkhan’s turn to stare back. Part of him is utterly relieved he won’t be out on the streets with just his brother and a missing limb, unable to protect him. Part of him, part of him-

“I want to go home,” he confesses, like it’s an unforgivable sin to be weak, when Mama told him so many times to be brave, and waits for Yuriy to scoff at his naivete. 

Instead, an unreadable expression passes over Yuriy’s face. He sighs, rubbing the back of his head, and sits on the edge of the bed to finish re-wrapping his stump. “I know, kid. One day, I hope that you can. But until then, let us help you, and let us keep you safe.”   
  


* * *

Winry’s not so bad when she’s not bothering him. In fact, sometimes, when she and Atal do puzzles on the floor of the recovery room, and Atal actually giggles, the tears in his eyes stopping just long enough to finish another side, she’s downright bearable. 

Especially now, as she stands behind her mother while Sara straps the last buckle on the prosthetic. She’s holding Atal’s hand tight within her own, and her own expression is determined. It’s making Eshkhan feel as though perhaps, he should be determined, too. 

“There,” she pats Eshkhan’s fake foot. It’s so odd to watch her hand make contact with his foot and not be able to feel it. “Let’s try and stand.” 

Eshkhan stares down at his bare feet- one dark, the other a pale plastic. He needs to stand on his own two feet. He can’t protect Atal from a bed. He can’t. 

“One, two-” Sara braces him on both sides and slips him off the edge of the bed. Eshkhan’s head swims, but he shuts his eyes tight and refuses to give into it, and feels his feet hit the tile floor. His stump prickles painfully, but then Sara’s hands release him, and Eshkhan opens his eyes. 

He’s standing. 

Atal’s crying again, and Eshkhan can’t even open his mouth to console him before his brother shoots forward and wraps him in a tight hug. Eshkhan nearly stumbles, but Sara steadies him, a small smile on her tired face. 

“I’ve been so _scared-_ ” Atal whispers to him in Ishvalan. 

“What, that I wouldn’t stand again?” Eshkhan puffs his chest out, though he feels closer to throwing up than to doing anything heroic. “C’mon, Atal! Don’t you remember when I broke my arm last year? I was up and playing ball in the street in like, _two weeks_ -” 

Atal lets out a sound that’s somewhere halfway between a laugh and a sob. 

Eshkhan pulls his head to his chest and wraps his arms around him. He looks up at Sara, who’s picked Winry up and is looking at them with an odd look in her eyes. “When can I get automail?” 

Sara’s soft expression immediately shifts. “Oh, Eshkhan, you’re _far_ too young for that!”

“But Winry said-” 

Winry’s eyes go wide and she immediately tries to wriggle out of her mother’s arms.

Sara, however, holds her daughter out at arm’s length and gives her a stern look. “Winry may want to follow in her grandmother’s footsteps and become an automail mechanic, but she would do well to remember that she’s _not one yet_.” 

“But he _could!_ ” Winry whines, cheeks red. 

“Absolutely not.” Sara says. She kneels down to gently pull Atal away, then she picks Eshkhan up as if he weighs nothing and sits him back on the edge of the bed. She begins to undo the straps of the prosthetic. “Automail surgery is incredibly hard on the body, and Eshkhan is still recovering. We can talk about it when you’re older, Eshkhan.” 

“So, it’s not a no?” Eshkhan asks hopefully, and Sara huffs a laugh, helping him to lay back onto his pillows. 

“It’s not a no,” Sara pulls the blankets back up to his shoulders and smooths the hair off his forehead. “It’s definitely not a no.”   
  


* * *

  
Eshkhan and Atal have been in Resembool for just over a month when the Rockbells announce that they’ve been ordered to return to Ishval.

“Why can’t you just stay?” Winry asks tearfully, shoving her face into her father’s chest.

Eshkhan feels his throat close up; he looks away. 

“The military, my love,” Yuriy says gently. “You know that. We have to go.” 

“Then I _hate_ the military!” Winry wails.

“You’re not the only one, Win.” Sara says, and then turns to Eshkhan who’s only started getting out of bed for meals last week, making the slow walk across the house with at least one Rockbell and his brother at his side. “But before we go, we need to discuss something with you boys.” 

Atal’s hand tightens around his. Eshkhan squeezes back. 

“You’re getting better, now, Eshkhan, and we don’t want to keep you boys inside all the time.” Sara says. “It’ll be summer soon. You should be able to play outside.” 

“But, you need to understand something.” Yuriy adds. “As long as the war is going on, not everyone in Resembool is going to understand that having different eye colors and speaking a different language isn’t dangerous. We want to keep you safe.” 

“We can’t change our eye color,” Eshkhan says irritably, though he knows that it’s not _his_ eyes they’re referring to. Eshkhan’s eyes could reasonably pass for a light brown in the right light; Atal’s are undeniably a bright, desert-blood red. 

“No, so we need to take every other precaution we can, and that includes you, Winry.” Yuriy says. “No speaking Ishvalan outside of the house. If anyone asks, you two are the children of some of our friends who needed a place to stay. And finally-” Yuriy’s eyes meet Eshkhan’s, hesitating, as if he’s waiting to rip off a bandage. “Your names.” 

“Our names.” Atal repeats. 

“They’re distinctive, Atal,” Sara says gently, and it's like they’re just dragging off the bandage as slowly as they can, allowing it to pull painfully at his skin. “If you use them outside the house, people will be able to guess fairly easily that you’re not Amestrian.”

“But they’re our _names_ ,” Atal insists. His eyes are wide and a frightened expression is creeping over his face. “They’re gifts, from Ishvala, and from- from Mama, we can’t just-” 

But as Atal grows more panicked, Eshkhan grows more resigned. He should have known better. They’ve taken everything else from them. To think that they’d be able to keep their names was naive, at best. 

“You’re right, Atal, they’re sacred,” Eshkhan interrupts quietly, though he doesn’t believe a word he’s saying. “and they’re gifts. And these Amestrians- some of them helped destroy our home. They don’t deserve to know our names, then, do they?” 

“Oh.” Atal says quietly. “Maybe they don’t.”

“It’s better this way, then.” Eshkhan says. “They can’t _take_ our names away. We just have to hide them.” 

“Hide them.” Atal nods, the utter trust in his expression making Eshkhan nauseous, somehow. “Okay. Okay, brother.” 

At some point in their conversation, they had slipped into Ishvalan without realizing it. Eshkhan pulls his head up to find all of the Rockbells staring at them. 

“Alright,” Eshkhan says in Amestrian. “We’ll use different names.” 

Sara’s shoulders slump down, as though she was scared Eshkhan would refuse. “I have a list,” She offers, pushing a piece of paper across the table. “Just suggestions. I thought you might like names that are at least a little bit similar to your true names.”   
  


* * *

When Sara and Yuriy Rockbell leave the next morning at the break of day, Winry trying and failing to hold in a sob as she waves to them, Edward and Alphonse Elric stand next to her, and watch the truck drive further and further down the dirt road until it disappears into the mist.   
  


* * *

  
“What’s Ishval like?” Winry asks, hanging upside down from a tree branch, face flushed red and braids swinging. 

Eshk- _Ed-_ Ed looks up at her and shrugs, plucking another dandelion from the grass. 

“Home, I guess.” He says. Even hearing the word _Ishval_ is enough to churn his stomach, and he doesn’t want to break this moment. Not when this is the first time Pinako has allowed all three of them outside without supervision, the first time Ed has been allowed to sit in the sun and breathe without the smell of antiseptic and blood clogging his nose.

Al, as he always is these days when he’s not crying, is napping, head pressed against Ed’s thigh. His chest is rising and falling, and his hair looks almost shock-white in the direct sunlight. It’s getting long. Ed runs his fingers through it. Mama would want to cut it, if she saw it. 

“Does it look like Resembool?” Winry swings off the branch, and Ed’s stomach flips with her, but she lands on the ground effortlessly and dusts off the dirt from the knees of her overalls. She flops down next to him, takes some of the dandelions he’s pulled up, and begins plaiting them together with quick fingers. 

“No.” Ed snorts, relinquishing his pile to her. “Not at all.” 

“So, what does it look like?”

“Sand. Lots and lots of sand. No rivers. Not a lot of grass.” Ed says, tipping his head up to the clear blue sky. “The sky is the same, though.” 

“No river?” Winry asks. “What do you do when it gets hot in the summer?” 

Ed looks back down and has to blink a few times before Winry comes into focus. “We stayed inside. We- my cousin and I- we used to play card games when it was too hot to go outside. She beat me every time.” 

“I didn’t know you had a cousin!” Winry says excitedly. “I’m so jealous- I don’t have any! What’s her name?”

“Cyra.” Ed feels his throat close up. His hand tightens on Al’s head. “Her name- her name was Cyra.” 

Winry is silent for a moment. She finishes plaiting the dandelions and runs her fingers over the crest she’s built, a crown of yellow flowers in her lap. “I’m sorry you lost your family. I miss my parents, too.” 

“Yeah, but yours are still alive.” Ed bites back, something acidic and hot and angry rising in his chest. “You’ll see them again. I can’t ever see my family again. They’re- they’re _gone_.” 

Winry’s eyes are filling with tears, and Ed doesn’t even have time to feel sorry that he made her cry yet _again_ before she gets up and runs towards the house, a muffled sob escaping her mouth. 

Atal stirs as Ed is staring at the crushed circle of dandelions she’s left behind in the dirt. 

_“Brother?”_ Atal asks sleepily, Ishvalan slipping off his tongue. 

“Amestrian, Al,” Ed reminds him half-heartedly.

Al’s face contorts for a second before he sits up and rubs at his eyes. “Where did Winry go?” 

“Back to the house.” 

“Did she leave that behind?” Al frowns, moving towards the dandelion crown. “What happened to it?” 

Ed doesn’t respond. He grabs a stick and draws a circle in the dirt, trying to remember the sigils from Baba’s manuscripts, all those months ago. It feels as though he’s lived a full lifetime since the- since _it_ happened. But he still remembers alchemy. 

He presses his hands to the edges of the array as Al looks on, bemused. When the glow dies down, the flowers are restored, their petals a bright, warm yellow. He picks it up and unsteadily gets to his feet, wincing when the movement sends a sharp pain up his stump. Atal scrambles up and immediately steadies him, and Ed doesn’t bother throwing him off. 

“C’mon, let’s bring this back to her.” Ed says, and they begin the slow, steady walk back to the house.   
  


* * *

  
Ed leaves the dandelion crown on her bed, and then retreats to his and Al’s room across the hall for the rest of the day.

Winry doesn’t say anything to him at dinner, but after they wash the dishes, she shoves a deck of cards in his hands and asks him to teach her how to play, and Ed’s pretty sure that means they’re okay, now.

* * *

“I want to learn alchemy.” Ed announces over lunch one day, nearly a year after they arrived in Resembool. Winry, reading a letter from her parents, doesn’t even look up. 

Pinako raises one eyebrow. “I thought alchemy was forbidden in Ishvalan religion,” She says, pouring a glass of milk for him. 

Ed resists the urge to gag and shoves the glass towards Al, who happily downs it in two gulps. 

“I’m not Ishvalan, am I?” Ed counters, crossing his arms. “I’m ‘Amestrian’.” 

“And we were learning it at home, too!” Al pipes in. 

“You were?” Pinako asks. “Where did you get the materials-?” 

“Our father. He was an alchemist. Before he left.” Ed says, and hopes his tone conveys that he wants to answer absolutely zero further questions about that. 

Pinako grunts an affirmative. “As it so happens, an old friend of mine used to study alchemy. His books are still in the basement. You boys can study down there, so long as you don’t make a mess.”   
  


* * *

  
The manuscripts are far more official-looking than the loose notes from Khal Eashoa’s study. 

Ed balances on a chair and pulls a thick-looking tome down from the top shelf at random. It clearly hasn't been touched in years, if the thick layer of dust is anything to go by, and the dark cover is hard to read. The gold Amestrian script is winding and stylized, and Ed has a hard enough time reading standard Amestrian. He squints and holds it up to the light. 

_“ _T_ he- the Principles of Bio-Alchemy_ _,”_ He reads, and glances down at Al, who’s making an exaggeratedly anxious expression, wringing his hands. “What?” 

“Will you get _down_ from the chair?” Al grits out. “Your leg, brother!” 

Ed rolls his eyes but scrambles down anyway, trying not to let Al see the pain the movement causes him. “I’m _fine_. You worry too much. C’mon, I think this book will work.” 

“Bio-alchemy?” Al frowns, leaning over the book as Ed flips it open. “Why bio-alchemy? That’s not what we were studying back home.” 

“No, but I have an idea.” Ed taps his head. “All alchemy is equivalent exchange, right? You can make anything, so long as you have the constituent elements.” 

“Yes?” Al says slowly. “But Baba’s manuscripts didn’t say anything about living things…” 

“That doesn’t mean it can’t be done.” Ed says dismissively. “After all, what’s the true difference between a flower and a human? We’re just a bunch of elements thrown together.”

“That doesn’t seem right, brother,” Al says nervously. “I think there _is_ a difference. Do you remember, Khal Ahiqar used to say that Ishvala had blessed us with a life-force- a soul-” 

“Ishvala is a kid’s tale, Al.” Ed says harshly, and only feels a little bad when his brother flinches. 

“Brother, you don’t mean that-” 

“I do.” Ed interrupts. “Khal Ahiqar also used to say that Ishvala loved us and looked after us. Where was Ishvala when Cyra died? When Mama died? When Khal Eashoa and Khal Ahiqar, and Eima-” 

“Okay, okay!” Al claps his hands over his ears and ducks his head. “I get it, stop!” 

Ed falls silent for a second. Al’s shoulders are shaking. It’s hard, sometimes, to remember that his brother is still a kid. Ed feels a great deal older than seven years old these days, but Al is barely _six_. He tugs Al’s hands off his head and holds them within his own. “Hey, I’m sorry,” he says quietly. 

Al shoves him away, his expression already molding back into practiced neutrality. He shakes his head. “Drop it. What does it matter, that you can transmute living things?” 

Ed flips open the next page of the book and looks up at his brother, a grim smile on his face, though it feels like maybe he’s just baring his teeth, instead. 

“I think we could bring Mama back, if we do this right.”   
  


* * *

  
They’re drawing a complex array on the basement floor when the doorbell rings a few months later. 

There’s some hushed talking and a single, terrible, scream, and Ed knows, before he takes a single step towards the stairs, chalk crushed in his hand, what’s happened.   
  


* * *

  
“Does it- does it ever feel better?” Winry asks tremulously.

Ed stares at the two gravestones in front of him engraved with Winry’s last name and wonders distantly if Mama’s body is still laying where it was left, crushed and battered on the kitchen floor. Wonders- when he brings her back- if the very injuries that broke her the first time around will still be marred on her body. 

It’s dark out; the funeral ended hours ago. Pinako had asked Al to go back to the house to help her with dinner, though Ed is fairly sure it’s because Pinako doesn’t want Al out in public for too long, lest someone get a good look at his eyes or listen too closely to his accented speech. 

“Sometimes.” Ed tells her. “Sometimes, it gets better, and sometimes, it gets worse.” 

“So I’m always going to feel like this?” There’s a hysterical note in Winry’s voice, and it reminds Ed too much of himself, one year ago, thrashing in a hospital bed when Sara Rockbell told him how they had ended up in Resembool. Part of him wants to throw up. Part of him wants to run as far from this place as he can. 

Instead, he takes Winry’s hand, cold fingers within his own, and holds it tight. “No.” He says truthfully. “You won’t always feel like this.” 

Winry sobs.   
  


* * *

  
It’s odd, when Winry grows quiet. 

Before, she was constantly talking- animatedly teaching Al how to bake a cake, humming along to the radio as she helped Pinako in the clinic, even chattering to Den about her day at school like he could understand her. No matter where Ed was in the house, he could pinpoint where Winry was by sound alone. 

But she’s quiet, now. She’s quiet to and from school. She’s quiet at meals. She’s quiet during the evenings, when she sits outside on the porch for hours on end. 

In fact, the only time Ed ever hears her is late at night, when her door opens, the floor creaks, and short, gasping sobs come from Pinako’s bedroom, Pinako’s low, soothing tone countering them. 

It’s late spring. The trees are bright green, the flowers are blooming. It’s nothing like spring in Ishval, but Ed thinks Mama would have liked it. Cyra definitely would have liked it, too. She’d love the horses in the neighboring fields, the bright yellow dandelions that grow by the fence posts. Ed bets she’d even like the entirely too-sweet apple pies that Pinako occasionally brings home from the bakery in town, which Khal Eashoa would have _loved_ \- he always had a sweet tooth.

Ed pushes open the door to the back porch after dinner and finds Winry where she always is, these days. She’s sitting on the steps, arms wrapped around her knees and expression blank as she stares out over the fields. She barely even moves when Ed down sits next to her. 

It’s silent for a long while. Ed watches the cows graze, the sun sink lower. He’s not sure what he’s supposed to say. It’s not like there's any platitude that will make it better. Words won’t bring back the Rockbells from the dead. 

“I get why you got angry at me, now.” Winry says suddenly, and Ed startles, glancing at her. Her eyes are puffy and red, fixed on the fields, her voice is strained. 

“What?” 

“When you came here, and I said sorry that you lost your family. You got angry.” Winry clarifies. She still won’t look at him. “I get it now. I- I _hate_ that people say sorry.” Her tone is tough in a way Ed has never heard it before. 

“Yeah.” Ed says softly. “I know.” 

“I just- I want them back.” Winry’s voice breaks in the middle, and her shoulders begin to shake, tears tracking well-worn paths down her cheeks. “I want them back.” 

Ed looks back out at the sunset as a lump appears in his throat, and wonders, when they bring Mama back, if maybe, after, they could bring the Rockbells back, too.  
  


* * *

  
“Alphonse- Al, are you paying attention?” 

Ed looks up from his notes to find the teacher standing in front of the chalkboard with her arms crossed tight and a severe expression directed at his little brother, who’s got his head buried in an alchemy text. Ed shoves an elbow into Al’s ribs. When Al hisses in indignation, turning to give Ed a betrayed look, Ed nods at the front of the room, where the teacher now has her eyebrows raised. 

“Yes, sorry, ma’am!” Al squeaks out. “C-could you repeat the question?” 

“I asked if you knew who the first Fuhrer of Amestris was?” 

Al turns back to Ed with a wide, panicked gaze, but Ed shakes his head. He has no _clue_ who the first Fuhrer was, and what’s more, he really doesn’t care. He’s about to whisper to Al to just take the failure and move on when a note gets shoved in his book, and he looks up to find Winry surreptitiously climbing back into her seat, rolling her eyes. Ed hastily passes it to Al, who unfolds it and reads it as quickly as he can. 

“Fuhrer- Fuhrer King Bradley,” Al stutters out, and the teacher makes a _harumph-_ ing noise. 

“That’s right,” she says. “and before him?” 

“I-” Al stares at her hopelessly.

Ishval did not have fuhrers or kings, and Mama only taught them what was necessary about Amestris. Cyra taught them more, but now, as Ed gets older, he wonders how much of it was true, and how much of it was just Cyra making up fantastical bedtime stories. 

“Ma’am!” Winry raises her hand, waving it frantically. “Ma’am, before that, we had presidents!” 

“Well done, Winry, though I did not call on you.” The teacher narrows her eyes at Al, and Ed resists the urge to shove his little brother behind him to break her gaze. “Your parents ought to have taught you this. This is basic Amestrian history. Shame on you.” 

Al slumps down in his seat, cheeks flaming, and Ed glares at the teacher as his brother hides his red, red eyes behind his hands, and the lesson continues on as if nothing had interrupted it.   
  


* * *

“I heard they’re orphans.” 

“Ooh, I heard that too!” 

“I heard that he’s a cripple!”

“Well, I heard they’re not even Amestrian!” 

“What?” 

“Yeah! I heard- I heard my Dad say that they look _Ishvalan_ and that the Rockbells were _sympathizers,_ and that’s why they got killed.” 

“Is that why they’re so stupid? I heard they don't even have school out in the desert. I bet they can't even _read_.” 

A chorus of giggles breaks out, and Ed tightens his hand into a fist. Al snags his arm before he can turn back around on the dirt road they’re walking on back to the Rockbell house after school. 

“Leave it.” Al hisses. “We can’t- Pinako told us not to draw attention to ourselves.” 

“They’re making fun of you, Al!” 

“And you, too, brother.” Al raises his eyebrows. 

It’s not quite as sunny in Resembool. Al’s hair has faded from a sun-bleached white to something closer to Ed’s light gold. _It’s good,_ Ed tells himself. _It’s good that he looks less Ishvalan. It’s easier to hide, that way._

But another part of him desperately wishes that Al’s hair would retain its brilliance. That he wouldn’t have to duck his head to avoid eye contact lest someone think twice about the red of his irises. That the blue sweater he’s wearing was instead a tan tunic, and crossed by a sash that was always too itchy, too annoying to fold correctly, so Mama always did it for him before they went to Temple- 

Eshkhan turns on his heel and charges straight into the crowd of kids, dropping his backpack and pushing up the sleeves of his shirt as he goes.   
  


* * *

  
When they show up back at the house scuffed and bloody, Al’s sweater ripped at the collar and Ed sporting a black eye, Pinako says nothing, but gets out the first aid kit with a sigh. 

* * *

  
“You don’t celebrate the winter solstice?” Winry demands as she shoves more wood into the stove. Ed shuts the heavy door when she finishes, locking the latch. The fire immediately flares, and they both lean towards the warmth it emits. 

Outside, it’s flurrying a mixture of white snow and freezing rain. The old house is drafty and cold, especially in the mornings before Pinako heats up the stove, so they’re both bundled up in sweaters and thick socks. Ed scratches underneath the itchy wool, fingers ghosting over an old scar. 

Winry gives him yet another outraged look, as if failure to celebrate the solstice is a personal failing on Ed's part, as they walk back to the living room. “What did you celebrate in the winter, then?” 

Ed has to think for a moment. A majority of their holy days had been in the summer, when the sun was at its hottest and burned the longest. There would be great bonfires that would last well into the night, with singing and dancing. Al was still too little, at the last one. He fell asleep in Khal Eashoa’s lap while Cyra showed Ed the steps to the dance the adults were doing, giggling when he tread on her feet. 

“There was one, I guess.” Ed shrugs. “In the middle of the winter, to hasten the coming of spring.” 

Al barely looks up as they enter the living room, nose buried in another alchemy text Ed had finished last week and then passed off to his brother with notes in the margins. They’ve made their way through about three-fourths of the Bio-Alchemy texts in the basement, and slowly, but surely, a plan has begun to form. 

“What was it called?” Winry asks curiously as they settle down on the carpet and she pulls out a deck of cards. It’s their ritual, these long winter nights, now. 

“ _Alainqilab_ ,” Ed says, and quirks a half-smile when Winry immediately tries to copy his pronunciation and absolutely butchers it. 

“Close enough.” He chuckles.

Winry’s cheeks flare a bright pink and she throws the card box at him. “So?” She asks, dealing the cards into two piles. “What did you do?” 

What _did_ they do? It’s been nearly two years now since Ed has celebrated any holy day. But he remembers _a_ _lainqilab_ not being a major holiday, not even requiring a visit to Temple- just extra prayers in the morning and at night. He can’t remember there being anything else so special about the day. They just cooked and ate together, and the kids would play games, and when the sun set, Khal Ahiqar would murmur a prayer, head bowed towards its bright flaring yellows and oranges. 

“Pretty much the same thing you do,” He glances through the cards Winry’s dealt him and bites back a grin. “Except I never got my ass kicked at cards like you’re about to-”

The flurry of Ishvalan swears that Winry immediately lets loose don’t require any correction in pronunciation.   
  


* * *

  
It doesn’t take long for them to exhaust Pinako’s Alchemy collection. The measly library in town has nothing other than the most basic of alchemy texts, and nearly every textbook they’ve read so far has cautioned that learning from an experienced alchemist is the best course of action. 

“What about the guy who left them?” Ed crosses his arms, glaring at her. “Can’t you get in touch with him?” 

“With Van Hohenheim?” Pinako looks up from the automail arm she’s showing Winry how to wire on to give him a look. “No, I don’t think so.” 

“Van-” Ed’s brain short-circuits for a second. “Did you say _Van Hohenheim?_ ” 

“I did. Are you losing your hearing, Edward, or-” 

“How do you know _that_ asshole?” 

Pinako blinks at him. “He’s an old friend of mine. How does he concern you?” 

_“He’s my sorry excuse for a father._ _”_ Ed grits out. He hasn’t thought about the man in months. Hasn’t wanted to. 

Pinako seems to evaluate him for a second, then makes a _hmph-_ ing sound, and goes back to tinkering with the wiring on the arm. “I should have known. You look just like him.” 

_“I DO NOT LOOK ANYTHING LIKE THAT RAT BASTARD, YOU-”  
  
_

* * *

When the yelling has died down two hours later, and Pinako has admitted she has no idea where Hohenheim is, and that she can’t get them any more alchemy texts, Ed has come to one clear conclusion: 

They need a teacher.   
  


* * *

Izumi Curtis is frank, blunt, and more than a little terrifying.

But the first time they meet her, she takes one look at Al’s eyes, at Ed’s hair, and she says nothing. 

That’s how Ed knows she’s meant to be their teacher.   
  


* * *

  
They’ve been training with Teacher for over a year when Ed finally gets the courage to ask. 

He’s sick; a respiratory flu has made its way throughout the Curtis household, waylaying Sig and Al first, then Teacher, and finally, Ed. He gets sick easier these days, and he seems to stay sick longer, so he’s propped up in bed, reading a letter from Winry, when Teacher comes in with a mug of steaming tea.

She places it on his nightstand and busies herself checking his fever and adjusting his blankets.

Ed only allows himself a second to close his eyes and pretend that it's someone else before he forces them back open. “Teacher,” He starts, his voice horribly congested. “Can I ask you a question?” 

Teacher grunts an affirmative.

Ed raises an eyebrow. “Will you actually answer me?” 

“Maybe, brat.” Teacher crosses her arms. “What is it?” 

“The taboos.” 

Teacher’s eyes immediately narrow. “What about them, Ed?” 

“Gold, I understand. The military, I guess, I get too. But what happens if you try and transmute a human?” He tries to keep his eyes wide and innocent, as though this is purely academic curiosity, and not a plan he’s honed and refined over the past few years, scribbling down notes in the margin of his notebook any time he has a free minute. 

Teacher sits on the edge of his bed and roughly pulls him forward. Her eyes are dark and unforgiving, and Ed holds his breath, though he tells himself he’s not scared. 

“Listen to me, Edward Elric. Listen closely. The taboos are not a joke, and they’re not there to control alchemists needlessly. Alchemy will have you believing you have the power of a god; the taboos remind you that you do not. They have dire, _dire_ , consequences. You will lose more than you’ve ever lost before.” 

_That’d be hard to do_ , Ed thinks, but somehow manages to keep his mouth shut. He shoves Teacher’s hands off of him, and settles back down, rolling his eyes exaggeratedly. “I was just _wondering_ ,” he grumbles, stifling a cough. “You could try being nice to me, for once.” 

“You could try being less bratty,” Teacher retorts, but her intense expression has relaxed, and she adjusts his blankets once more before standing back up. “Rest. If your fever isn’t broken by tomorrow, I’m calling the doctor.”

“But-” 

“Argue with me and I’ll have you cleaning the butcher room for a month, kid.” 

Ed snaps his mouth shut. Teacher shoots him a look that’s indecipherable before she closes his door. When he picks up the tea, familiar notes of star anise and honey bloom across his tongue. Ed stares down into the dark liquid and wonders where Teacher could have possibly gotten Ishvalan tea from. 

* * *

  
Winry’s a head taller and her hair’s a foot longer when they return to Resembool. She throws her arms around Ed and holds him tight, and Ed even tolerates her for a minute before he shoves her off. 

“That’s it, right? You’re home for good?” She asks, letting Al go from her embrace. 

Ed bites back a wince and smiles weakly at her. “Yeah, for sure.” 

When Winry turns away, Al shoots him a look. Ed shrugs. If this works, if their array is right- it’s not like they have a home to return to, anymore. It’s nothing but ash, their people decaying in mass graves and their decimation splashed across the newspapers as a triumphant victory. 

Besides, maybe Mama will like Resembool.   
  


* * *

  
“Ed. One last time. Are you _sure_?” Al asks. He runs the back of his hand across his forehead and sits down. 

Ed checks the array on the ground against his notes and looks up, meeting his brother’s eyes. “It’s right, Atal.”

Al’s eyebrows shoot up, but he doesn’t comment. 

They’re in the basement. Winry and Pinako are sound asleep on the top floor of the house, and with any luck, by the time they wake, it’ll all be over. Ed fixes a small crack in the circle. When he looks up, Al’s head is bowed, his eyes closed. He throws the chalk at him. 

“What are you doing?” 

Al cracks one eye open and scowls at him. “Praying.” 

“Please.” Ed rolls his eyes. “This is science, Al. If you’re going to have faith in something, have faith in us. We’ve done it right.” 

“Still.” Al huffs. “It doesn’t hurt, _brother_.” 

The Ishvalan sounds almost foreign on his brother’s tongue, and that, more than anything else, convinces Ed that what they’re doing is right. 

“This is right. It’s going to work.” Ed repeats. It has to be right. For Mama. For Winry. “It’s right.” 

“I trust you, Ed.” Al says. 

Ed cuts his brother’s finger and mixes his blood with his own. 

This is going to work. 

They’re going to see their mother again. 

He takes one last deep breath, looks at his brother, and presses his hands to the array.   
  


* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and we already know the rest of this story, right? Trisha elric gets resurrected and they all live happily ever-
> 
> oh god i cant even finish it. 
> 
> asaf - sorry, terribly sorry  
> gadeb - angry  
> alainqilab - solstice


	4. and is born again with each sunrise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roy’s stomach lurches. 
> 
> He crosses the room in three quick strides and lifts the child out of the wheelchair by his shirt, the growing rush of blood in his ears almost enough to block out the sounds of everyone else clambering to stop him. “What did you do? Who did you try to transmute?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello hello! welcome to the last chapter! huge thank you to my beta @agentcalliope (ao3 and tumblr) for giving me so much help on this!

Resembool is quiet. There’s hardly any sounds on this dirt road besides the wind rustling the trees, the cows lowing in the adjacent field, the distant rush of a river. 

It makes Roy want to scratch his skin off. 

“Ten and eleven,” Hawkeye says suddenly next to him, and Roy startles and looks over at his adjutant. Her hair’s starting to get long. She usually has him cut it when it gets to her ears, but she hasn’t asked yet.

“That’s how old I was when I started training.” He says. 

“Not how old you were when you took the exam.” She counters, and then adds, “Sir,” as though it’s an after-thought. 

Roy shrugs one shoulder, rolls his eyes up at the clear-blue sky, and wonders if it shrugs with him. “If their prowess is anything like what was reported, then they need some direction regardless.” 

“Right,” Hawkeye’s voice is flat. “and we’re here for no other reason.” 

“None.” Roy says. “Glad we’re on the same page.” 

Rockbell Automail Clinic has a wind-chime outside the door. When Roy gets close enough to examine it, he sees three little hands imprinted in white on the metal, names scrawled along the side. 

_Winry,_ reads the careful inscription below the middle hand. 

Roy turns away. 

He knocks for almost a full minute before the door’s answered by an older woman.

She stares at them with cold, emotionless eyes, eyebrows raised in silent accusation, and doesn’t offer any greeting. Roy’s gotten too used to far worse reactions to his uniform to be bothered by it. 

“Good morning,” Roy says. “my name’s Lieutenant Colonel Mustang. I work for the-” 

“I know who you are.” The woman cuts him off. “Why are you here?” 

“We heard of two alchemists who lived here. The Elric brothers?” 

“You’re wasting your time.” The woman says shortly and begins to shut the door. 

Roy shoves his foot into the crack and pushes it back open. “Why would that be?” 

“They’re of no use to the Amestrian government.” The woman crosses her arms tightly. “Not anymore.” 

“Ma’am, with all due respect, we heard differently, and-” 

“Granny? Who is it?” 

A young girl with blonde hair and bright blue eyes appears over the woman’s shoulder, and Roy’s throat closes for a moment when she meets his gaze. Her expression immediately darkens and takes on a heavy anger Roy would have thought impossible for someone so young if he didn’t know better. “What do _you_ want?” She snarls. 

“Let them in.” A voice echoes from inside the house. Devoid of any emotions, hoarse and flat, but child-like. 

The girl- Winry, Roy is sure, she looks too much like her parents to be anyone else- turns back into the house. “Ed, are you sure? You don’t have to-”   
  
But Roy has already shoved open the door completely and crossed the threshold. He stops in his tracks. 

The child sitting in a wheelchair in the corner looks like something straight out of his nightmares, and nothing like what the report described. 

Three of his limbs are missing, and the only hand that remains dangles limp and useless over the side of the chair as though it’s missing, too. The child’s pallid dark skin is covered in a thin sheen of dried sweat and there are deep circles under his downcast eyes. His light hair is pulled back into a ponytail and clearly hasn’t been washed in weeks. In the late afternoon sun, it shines almost white.

Almost. 

Roy looks sharply back at Hawkeye, an unanswerable question on his lips begging to be asked, but he keeps his mouth shut tight, and Hawkeye can only shake her head mutely. 

“Edward Elric?” Roy asks slowly. 

The child’s dull eyes move with great effort to meet his. Roy wants to see something behind the disconcerting burnished gold, but they’re empty. Lifeless. 

“What happened?” He demands, turning back towards the woman. “We were told Edward was an amputee, but not _this._ ” 

“What’s going on?” 

Roy looks up and finds a suit of armor standing in the doorway. Namely, a hulking, walking, talking-with-the-voice-of-a-child suit of armor, standing in a direct beam of sunlight that allows Roy to see past the dark slits of the faceplate and all the way to the other side of the metal, where there’s a splash of dark red in the shape of an alchemical circle, and nothing else. 

Roy’s stomach lurches. 

He crosses the room in three quick strides and lifts the child out of the wheelchair by his shirt, the growing rush of blood in his ears almost enough to block out the sounds of everyone else clambering to stop him. _“What did you do? Who did you try to transmute?”_

The child barely reacts to him. His head lolls to the side. He blinks sluggishly at Roy, and then, for just a second, there is a spark of fire in the cold ashbed of his eyes. “You were in Ishval.” 

Roy recoils back, dropping him back into the wheelchair as though his clothes _burn_. His hands feel utterly bare, all of a sudden. Unprotected. “Why?” He asks roughly. “Why do you know that?” 

“The market.” The child says, and he laughs mirthlessly. “You killed them, didn’t you?” 

Roy stares at the boy’s thin face and suddenly remembers with startling clarity and a wave of nausea, a small child sprawled out in front of him on the ground of a busy marketplace, unusually golden eyes wide with fear. He’d left Akhmet only a few days after that, was transferred to the next region over to begin carrying out Order 3066. Something like relief floods his tight chest, but it’s short-lived. The child begins to laugh again, and this time, it sounds closer to a scream. 

Roy shakes himself violently and kneels down to the child’s level. “Listen to me closely, Edward Elric. Human Transmutation is a capital offense. If they find out, they won’t care that you’re a child. _They will kill you._ ” 

“They already did.” The child’s voice cracks. 

Roy roughly grabs his shoulders, leans closer. “You only have two options here. You will either die, and your brother will remain whatever- _thing-_ you’ve made him into, or you can get up, and you can fix this.” 

He lets the child go. He falls back lifelessly into his wheelchair and Roy stands up. 

Winry has her hands balled into fists and angry tears are spilling over her cheeks. Hawkeye’s expression hasn’t changed, but Roy can tell she’s close to doing the same. He walks to the door. “When you’re ready to fix your mistakes, I’ll be at Eastern Command.” 

When the child looks up to meet his eyes, there’s a flicker of something in his own. That’s enough for Roy. He bangs open the front door and takes the stairs down two at a time, Hawkeye behind him. 

When he gets far enough from the house that he can’t read the sign anymore, Roy doubles over by a tree and promptly throws up everything he’s eaten in the past twelve hours. 

Hawkeye stares at him with stoney eyes, arms crossed, as he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “A child. They’re children.” 

“No.” He says shortly, and shoves his gloves onto his hands. The rough material is almost comforting, in a twisted way. “They all ceased to be children the minute we took everything from them. Maybe, this way- maybe we can help them get something back.” 

It’s not absolution. Nothing ever will be. But it’s _something._

* * *

“I’m still not sure this is the best course of action, Ed.” Pinako says, peering at him over the edge of her glasses. “I’ve never heard of anyone with more than two automail limbs. The strain on your body-” 

“I have to.” Ed cuts her off, staring at the white ceiling of the recovery room. It’s been a long time since he’s wished it was tan. “How long for recovery?”

“For three limbs? Three years, at the shortest.” 

Distantly, Ed can hear Al clunking around in the kitchen, trying to help Winry prepare a dinner that he can’t eat. 

He can’t sleep, either. Ed found that one out when he woke up screaming from a nightmare of a roof collapsing, Cyra trapped on top of him, blood dripping from her mouth, and Al was immediately at his side. 

Ed swallows a roil of hot, guilty nausea. All that he has left is Al, and he’s condemned his brother to a half-life. 

But maybe- 

Maybe he can fix it. 

“I’ll do it in eighteen months.”

* * *

“Geez, Winry, you don’t have to cry,” Ed mutters, ducking away from her as he shoves the last of his clothes into the small suitcase Pinako procured for him. 

Winry sniffles again and pulls her knees to her chest. “You don’t have to go.” 

“I do. I can’t- I can’t leave Al like that.” 

“Aren’t you worried?” She fiddles with his bedspread. “What if they- Ed, what if they find out?” 

Ed slams down the top of the suitcases and immediately cringes when he hears Winry gasp behind him. He still hasn’t quite figured out the strength of this new arm. “They won’t.” 

“How can you be so sure?” She demands. “What if they do? I know it’s not law anymore, but what if, what if-” 

“I don’t have a choice, Winry!” Ed whirls around to face her. “I’m down to one fucking limb, and Al- he’s- he’s-” He cuts off and takes a deep breath, trying to calm the desperate thrumming of his heart in his throat. “I don’t have a choice. Mustang said he’d help me find a Philosopher’s Stone, and that’s the only lead I have right now. I’m _not_ leaving him like that. I won’t. I won’t do it.” 

“Alright, I know.” Winry whispers. “But you have to promise, okay? You have to promise to keep yourself safe, and keep Al safe, and you have to promise to come back.” 

Her face is red and swollen, and there’s a terrifying trust in her blue eyes. Like she thinks he’ll pull it off. Like she thinks he’ll return. 

Ed turns away again. “I can’t promise anything.” 

* * *

“Some stunt you pulled with Fuhrer Bradley,” Mustang drops a file down onto the desk and leans against it, crossing his arms. “Could have gone real badly for you.” 

Ed picks up the file he’s dropped and flicks it open. “He hasn’t had me killed yet, has he?” 

“‘Yet’, being the key word there. If you’re going to be under my command, I’m going to need you to reign in the stupid, dangerous stunts by at least fifty percent, alright? I’m not trying to go gray before I’m thirty, kid.” 

Ed holds in a derisive snort and doesn’t bother lying to Mustang as he skims the embossed paper within the file. The Amestrian inside, which pronounces him a State Alchemist and grants him the rank of Major, is flowery and in looping cursive, but Ed’s gotten far better at deciphering non-standard Amestrian, and it only takes him a minute to reach the bottom of the page. Something cold settles in his stomach as he stares at the last sentence on the page. He looks up at Mustang. “Fullmetal Alchemist?” 

“That’s right,” Mustang nods. “every State Alchemist is granted a title.” 

“And you’re the Flame Alchemist.” 

“Yes.” Mustang splays his fingers out against the wood of the desk and grips the edge tightly. 

“But my alchemy has nothing to do with metal-” 

“No, it doesn’t.” Mustang says heavily, and Ed falls silent. 

He flexes his own fingers, made of metal and screws and Winry’s sheer determination to give him back his body, and has to bite back a laugh. How fitting that the last step in joining the military that decimated his home, murdered his family, is to give up his name, yet again. 

The identity he’s erasing this time is fake, that’s true, but it was freely taken, and given to protect him. To accept a title clearly meant to deride him when his mother gave him a name meant to grant dignity and belonging- it feels like he’s spitting on her grave. 

Or he would be, if his mother was allowed the dignity of a burial. The hole that Pinako dug out back for the black, malformed thing that she dumped into it cannot count as a resting place, nor the prayers Al whispered as he knelt next to it for hours as funeral rites. 

Not for the first time, Ed thinks about Khal Ahiqar’s dogged insistence that alchemy brings nothing but ruin, and wonders idly if maybe his uncle was right. But then he thinks about his brother, soul tethered to this world by nothing but metal and blood, and knows that it doesn’t matter whether he was. None of it does. Not if Ishvala is real, not if alchemy is cursed, not if what he’s doing is wrong. 

This path he is walking may end in nothing but more destruction and pain for him, but Ed is going to ensure that Al gets his body back before that happens. He won’t let his brother get dragged down into the pits of hell with him. 

He takes a pen off of Mustang’s desk and concentrates on signing his name along the bottom. He’d had to learn how to write again, and despite his focusing, his signature still looks blocky and childish. Still, he shoves the paper at Mustang and pretends not to notice how _final_ the action feels. 

Mustang takes the paper from him and slips it back into the folder. His expression is stonily neutral, his office deadly quiet, and Ed wonders if this is how every certification goes. 

“Well, that’s that.” Mustang says, and there’s an odd tone of regret in his voice, if Ed listens closely. “Welcome to the military, Fullmetal.” 

* * *

“Hey, Chief!” Havoc greets as Ed shoves open the door to the office. 

It’s raining out. Al’s metal got soaked from the walk from the train station and he’s sure to rust if he doesn’t dry off as soon as possible, so Ed had pushed him towards the barracks the minute they got back to Eastern Command. 

“Oh, is it raining?” Breda asks, staring at the water dripping from Ed’s braid with his eyebrows raised.

Ed shoots him a withering look before he claps his hands together, and the water flies off of his clothing and outwards into the office- 

-hitting Mustang, who’s exiting his inner office, straight into the face. Mustang wipes a hand over his face and flicks the water off. “Hello to you, too, Fullmetal,” he says dryly. 

Ed takes out his report, which he’d done on the train, and is only _slightly_ damp, and shoves it at him. “Here ya go. What’s our next assignment?” 

“Slow your roll,” Mustang grumbles as he unfolds the paper and peers at his writing. “Fullmetal, this is nearly illegible.” 

“Oh, I’m sorry, _you_ try writing with a metal hand on a train!” Ed flops down onto the couch, crossing his arms. 

Havoc snickers. Mustang shoots him a look, which makes him clamp his mouth shut and turn back towards his paperwork.

“You could have just waited till you got here to write it. Any major incidents?” 

“No, it was a bust.” Ed sighs. The so-called Philosopher’s stone had been nothing but a sleight of hand, if that. “And I wanted to get going on the next one right away, so chop-chop, Colonel, what’s the next assignment?” 

“There is none.” Mustang drops his report on Hawkeye’s desk; she dutifully begins to file it away. 

“Sorry, what?” Ed bangs theatrically on his ear, tilting his head towards the ground. “My ears must have gotten water-logged. It sounded like you said _‘there is none’?”_

“No, you heard right, Edward.” Hawkeye chimes in. Mustang shoots her a look, too, but Lieutenant Hawkeye’s made of stronger stuff than Havoc, and she continues on. “We’re going to need you to remain at Eastern Command for the time being.” 

“What?” Ed yelps, sitting straight up. “Why?” 

“You’ve heard about the killings in Central?” Mustang asks. 

“Sure, but that’s in _Central_ -” 

“They were all State Alchemists.” Mustang says. “Besides, Shou Tucker was in Eastern, and we have reason to believe it was the same man who killed him. Until he’s apprehended, you need to remain where I can keep an eye on you.” 

Ed turns away, his throat closing. Nina’s death had been another stab through his ribs and a vicious one, at that. He’s beginning to think it’s not worth getting close to anyone; maybe his destruction is catching. 

“I can take care of myself.” He forces out, and prays that his voice doesn’t crack. The _last_ thing he wants is to show weakness in this office. 

“No one thinks any different.” Hawkeye turns in her seat to face him. “But this man has killed alchemists triple your age, Ed.” 

“So then, I’ll help catch him.” Ed says. Anything to get back on the road. “Who is he?” 

“We don’t know much. He's got, uh, a scar in the shape of an “x” on his face,” Mustang says.

“Anything else?” Ed says impatiently. “You’re telling me no one got a look at anything but a scar?”

“Red eyes.” Hawkeye supplies quietly. “White hair. Darker skin. Tattoos.” 

The breath in Ed’s throat catches. His heart begins to pound in his chest. He grips the port of his right leg tightly, feels the flesh give way to metal under his fingers. “He’s Ishvalan.” 

“We’re fairly certain. We think these are acts of revenge.” Hawkeye says. 

Ed shakes his head. “No, no- revenge isn’t- Ishvalan religion isn’t _vengeful_ -” 

“Well, this Ishvalan is,” Mustang says. “Regardless, until he’s apprehended, you’re to remain in the dorms. Do you understand, Fullmetal?” 

“Fine. Whatever.” 

Ed stands and forces himself to walk out of the office, before the shakiness that’s already started in his flesh hand travels all the way down his body. He slams the door shut and leans his head against the cool glass of the window next to it, staring blankly at the sheet of rain coming down outside. 

“Is he alright?” Havoc’s voice sounds from inside the office, muffled and hushed. “Kid looked pretty shaken.” 

“He’s fine.” Mustang says shortly. “As long as he doesn’t pull any stupid shit to try and find Scar himself, he’ll be fine.” 

“Why does he know about Ishvalan religion? We never got taught any of that in school.” Falman asks. 

There’s a short silence. Ed’s heart ratchets up again. 

“He grew up near the Eastern border,” Hawkeye says finally. “I’m sure he was exposed to Ishvalans before the war.” 

“Ah, gotcha.” Falman seems satisfied, and the sounds of the office shift back into typewriters banging and papers shuffling. 

Ed takes a deep breath and pulls his head up off the window. If Mustang isn’t going to let him leave until Scar’s found, then Ed’s just going to have to do what he’s done dozens of times already in the three years he’s been a State Alchemist- everyone else’s job. 

* * *

“Brother! Brother, he went that way!” Al grabs Ed by his automail and turns him towards a small alleyway, where Ed can just make out a flash of white hair disappearing behind a corner. 

Part of him wonders- wonders if maybe, in another life- 

No, it doesn’t matter. 

What matters is that this man is killing every State Alchemist he can get his hands on. _Killed_ Nina. And that he doesn’t seem to care that Ed couldn’t have possibly been involved in Ishval, as the rest of the State Alchemists that he’s killed were. 

So Ed charges down the alleyway, Al hot on his heels. 

Scar’s turned down a dead-end, backed up by a massive brick building, and Ed immediately claps to transmute a blade over his arm, wincing internally about the shit Winry’s sure to give him for it. She _hates_ when he fucks up his outer casing. 

Scar seems about to perform his own alchemy, his hulking back towards them. His hands are pressed to the wall and glowing red, but imminent danger has never stopped Ed before, and it’s not about to, now. 

“It’s over, Scar!” Ed yells, moving forward. “We’ve got you cornered!” 

Scar glances behind at them. And then he does something weird. His shoulders tighten. His head picks up. And then he drops his hands. 

Ed turns to Al, because what the _fuck_ are they supposed to do now? All those reports of Scar murdering grown adults, and now he just _surrenders?_ But Al is staring straight ahead and there’s a look of shock, if such a thing could exist, on his faceplate. 

“ _Khal,”_ Al breathes out. 

“Al, _what-_ ” 

Ed turns back. And finds his uncle on his knees in front of him. 

Like Mustang said, a massive scar mars his face, crossing both his eyes, and his arm is covered in oddly familiar tattoos where there should only be clear skin. But there is no mistaking his red eyes. 

The same shade and shape as Mama’s. 

“ _Kh-khal_?” Ed manages to stutter. “You- you’re?” 

“Hey, has anyone seen Fullmetal?” Havoc hollers from the street, only a couple dozen feet away. “Could have sworn he went down this way-” 

Ed immediately turns, slams his hands on the ground, and raises a massive wall to block them off from the street. When he turns back, Ahiqar hasn’t moved from his place on the ground. He’s slumped forward, as if all the fight’s been drained out of him. 

“You’re Fullmetal.” Ahiqar says quietly. When he raises his eyes to meet Ed’s, they’re rimmed with red. “I thought- I thought you were gone, Eshkhan.” 

“We thought you were, too,” Al says. 

Ahiqar looks sharply at Al, and comprehension dawns first on his face, and is quickly replaced with something far more distressed. “ _Atal?_ ” 

“Yeah, it’s me!” Al says. “I-if you survived, did anyone else-” 

“You committed the taboo,” Ahiqar says harshly, and Ed remembers with sudden, startling clarity, long sermons on saying their prayers before meals, folding their sashes correctly, paying attention during Temple. 

And then he remembers Nina’s blood staining the carpet, and knows that his uncle’s shaking hands- hands that had brushed his hair, made him food, tucked him into bed- were the cause. 

A sudden rush of red-hot anger blinds Ed for a moment. He jabs a metal finger right into his uncle’s chest as it rises and falls with his breaths, because he’s alive, he’s _alive_ , he’s somehow alive- “Don’t lecture me about _shit,_ ” Ed says, low and raging. Ahiqar stares up at him with wide eyes, not moving a muscle. “We thought you were dead. We thought everyone was dead, and me and Atal- we had _no one._ And now, what, we find out you’ve been alive this entire goddamn time, and what have you been doing? Killing left and fucking right _._ You were going to kill _me_.” 

“I-I thought you were a State Alchemist-” 

“I _am_ a State Alchemist.” Ed snarls, and there’s a sick, twisted sort of satisfaction to be had in the way that horror unfolds across his uncle’s face. “As if you have room to talk. As if your sacred oath as a priest included murdering _children_.” 

“Eshkhan,” Ahiqar says. “State Alchemists, they’re the ones that-” 

_“We know!”_ Al yells in Amestrian, and Ed abruptly realizes that he’d slipped into Ishvalan unconsciously. There’s a metal hand on Ed’s chest, shoving him back from Ahiqar, and Al steps between them. “ _Khal,_ you think we don’t _know_ that? But we made a mistake, and it seems like we aren’t the only ones who did. We needed the resources of the military. Trust me, Brother doesn’t like it anymore than you do. Now listen to me, both of you. We don’t have much time before someone realizes that the wall isn’t supposed to be there, so I’m going to ask you this one more time, and you’re going to answer. _Khal. Did anyone else survive?”_

Ahiqar stares at Al, eyes searching the metal faceplate for something. Ed isn’t sure what. And then his head bows, his eyes drop to the ground, and Ed breaks eye contact with his uncle. He knows what he’s about to say, and he doesn’t want to watch his face as he does. 

“No.” Ahiqar rasps out. “No, Atal, no one else survived. Cyra and Tsira are gone. I- I buried them myself. Eashoa- he gave himself to protect me and carry on his work.” Ahiqar flexes his scarred, tattooed arm, and a wave of hot nausea overtakes Ed. That’s where he recognizes the tattoos from. They’re Eashoa’s. 

Ed walks away. Pulls at his hair by the root, tugging it out of his braid, and shuts his eyes tight. 

_It doesn’t hurt,_ he tells himself. _It doesn’t._ _They’ve been gone for years. He’s_ known _they’ve been gone for years. This changes nothing._

But his uncle is alive. Someone is alive. Until the military catches him, that is. Ed looks up sharply at the large wall he’s transmuted.

“Go.” Ed says.

“Wh-what?” Ahiqar stutters. 

_“Go.”_ Ed repeats, and turns on his heel to shove his uncle forward. “If they find you, they’ll kill you.” 

“But-” 

“Do you think we have time to argue? Go!” 

“We’ll find you, I promise!” Al says, and helps Ahiqar to his feet. 

Ahiqar still looks shaken, confused, but he presses his hands to the back wall. It crumbles under his touch, and he shoots them both a final look, lips pressed tightly together, before he disappears behind it and the wall builds itself back up. 

It isn’t until Al lays a careful hand on Ed’s shoulder and he startles violently that realizes he’d been staring at the wall. 

“Are you alright?” Al’s Ishvalan is rusty. He slips on a syllable, and Ed has to stop himself from wincing. 

“I’m alright, brother.” Ed forces a weak smile to his face. “We’ll find him. Let’s go, before they get suspicious.” 

* * *

Ed doesn’t know what he expected Lieutenant Hawkeye’s apartment to look like, but he knows it wasn’t this. It’s small, but clean and warm. There are flowers on her kitchen table and an old picture of two kids- one with short blonde hair, one with cropped black hair- grinning toothily with their arms around each other’s shoulders, taped to her ice-box. Black Hayate is stretched out underneath her feet, and Ed has to stare at these details for a minute before he really comprehends them, proof that Hawkeye exists outside of the office, outside of her uniform. 

He wraps his hands around the tea she poured him and tugs it closer, watching her methodically clean the gun with a serene look on her face. 

“It hasn’t been fired,” Hawkeye says. There’s no accusation in her tone, but Ed flushes anyways. 

“No.” Ed manages to get out. He stares down into the dark tea and wishes it tasted a little sweeter, a little sharper. “I couldn’t- I couldn’t fire it, not even when I found the- _thing_ \- responsible for killing my family. Guess that makes a coward, huh?” 

A soft hand slips under his chin and tilts his head back up. Hawkeye’s brown eyes have a deep, nearly sherry-red tint to them, Ed notices distantly. “On the contrary.” She says gently. “Do you want to tell me what happened?” 

He doesn’t. 

He really, really doesn’t. 

Ed would sooner forget waking up in an ocean of blood, the smell of it so pervasive, so pungent, that even when he retched, he couldn’t taste the acidic bile over the iron in his mouth. He had no need to add the recollection of wandering until Ling collapsed, and Ed had to drag him for hours to the stack of terrible memories he keeps locked in the back of his head.

Finding Envy. Envy telling them that there was no way out, that they were stuck in Gluttony until they died. 

Envy taunting him. Because humans might be wired to overlook what would be too inconvenient to acknowledge, but Envy could pick out the too-light shade of Ed’s hair, the too-dark shade of his skin, from the moment they met. 

“Oh, and it was so _easy,_ to start the war, _”_ Envy cackled, turning their head towards Ed. “To shoot that little girl. You see, there’d been clashes before then, sure, but nothing quite like what I did. She trusted me, you know. Trusted me up until I put the gun against her head. Her eyes, well-” Their dark eyes bore into Ed, and he dug his nails into his palm. “I’d imagine her eyes looked something like your brother’s, before I shot her.” 

Ed was moving forward before Ling could stop him, hands moving of their own accord, vision narrowed down to Envy’s dark, soulless eyes, and nothing else. “ _You_ ,” he snarled, hands closing around the gun in his jacket. “You did this. You started the civil war. You destroyed my home. Murdered my family. _You killed- You killed my mother._ ” 

He didn’t know that he had ever internalized how to handle a gun from Hawkeye’s lectures. All he knew is that within a second, the safety was clicked off, and the muzzle was shoved under Envy’s jaw. “Give me _one_ _fucking reason_ I shouldn’t kill you right now.” 

“Simple.” Envy tilted their chin up. “It would make you as bad as me.” 

Ed stared. The gun was growing heavy in his hand. He’d never seen Mama’s body. He’d been out of his mind with pain, and all he remembers is someone putting a hand over his eyes as he was carried out of the house, and Atal’s screams, loud enough to shake the walls. But he had enough nightmares to imagine what it looked like. 

To make another corpse- 

Ed doesn’t know that he could do it. 

The gun sagged, just for a moment, and Envy laughed in his face. 

“You humans and your _mercy._ ” 

And a back-hand sent him flying into the ocean of blood. 

The tea’s gone cold. He keeps his hands wrapped around it anyways. “Envy told me- Envy told me _outright_ , that the homunculi had started the war. That they were what killed my mom.” He whispers. “And I still couldn’t do it.” 

“Ed…” Hawkeye says quietly. She drops the gun onto the table, and when Ed looks up, she’s clutching her hands together, digging her nails into her skin. “The homunculi may have started the war, but we carried it out.” 

Ed knows that. He does. But there is no way to think about Mustang as the Flame Alchemist, and exist in the same world as him. It's easier to think of them as separate people.

Lieutenant Hawkeye, who brings him tea and sandwiches from the cafeteria without him asking during late nights, and the Hawk’s Eye, the sharpshooter who left entire mountains of carcasses that used to be his people, behind her.

Colonel Mustang, who constantly searches for leads for the Philosopher’s Stone for him, and the Hero of Ishval, who razed entire towns in minutes. He can’t reconcile the two together. He never has been able to. 

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” he says. 

“Nothing at all.” Hawkeye says, and she sounds like she’s being honest. “There is nothing I can say that will erase what I’ve done. I can’t beg your forgiveness. I can’t _be_ forgiven for it. Neither can the Colonel. But I want you to know- we want to make this right. You’ve seen bits and pieces of our plan over the years, but we’re going to make it right. There can be no peace for your people without justice, so we’re going to make it just. When the Colonel becomes Fuhrer, everyone who was hailed as a hero after Ishval will be tried as war criminals and sentenced however the tribunal sees fit.” 

Ed stares at her. He’s sure that if he applies any more pressure to this cup, it’ll break under his hand. 

Justice? 

Does such a thing exist? Can it exist? There is no way to move forward from what happened. He’s not entirely convinced that time didn’t stop moving the minute that roof fell on his head. Putting the murderers on trial does not bring back the murdered. No amount of retribution will make ash back into stone, blood back into living flesh. 

Ed doesn’t say anything back to her, because there isn’t anything to say. So he just sits at the table with cold tea under his hand, and Hawkeye quietly picks up the gun and continues cleaning blood out of every crevice. 

* * *

This isn’t nearly the first time Ed’s almost given up. Not even close to it. He doesn’t remember much from those weeks following the explosion, but there were moments of sudden lucidity within the ocean of hazy, feverish pain, with a Rockbell hovering over him, attempting to coerce him into drinking or taking medicine, that he recalls the pain nearly overtaking him. It pervaded every nerve in his body, and all that he can remember is thinking, _make it stop. Please. Anything to make it stop._

He can’t feel much now. 

He knows, logically, that the large piece of rebar sticking out from his stomach is causing him pain. The blood pooling underneath him is more than enough evidence that he is completely and unequivocally _fucked._

He coughs, once, and cringes at the blood that spatters out in front of him. He knows enough of human anatomy to understand that means he has minutes left, if that. 

Kimblee’s face flashes before his eyes, and Ed lets out a hacking laugh, adding to the crimson in the concrete. Nine years later, and the man finally had a chance to get one step closer to completely exterminating Akhmet. He must be overjoyed. 

So much for mercy.

It’s alright, though, isn’t it? He hasn’t believed in Ishvala in years, has only called out to Him in anger and derision. But maybe- maybe he’ll see Mama again. And Cyra. Everyone that he’s lost…

And then there’s Winry, closing his fingers around her earrings, expression determined and terrified, tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. “Keep them safe, alright?” _Keep yourself safe._

Al, ten years old, looking at him with such utter trust that Ed has to look away. Al, fourteen, red eyes reduced to a light glare out of a metal helmet. 

Ahiqar. Standing behind Winry. Telling Ed in no uncertain terms that he would protect the people he loved. 

“Fuck-” Ed gasps out, and shifts on his side as the shock begins to ebb, and a burning pain begins to spread up his side. “ _Fuck_ Kimblee. I won’t- I won’t make them cry. Not over this.” 

Ed brings his hands together, and blue light courses between his fingers. 

* * *

Ed had nearly forgotten what his brother looked like. 

The one glance he’d gotten of him since he was ten years old had been rushed and tinted with sheer anger and fear, and he hadn’t been able to get a good look at him. Wasn’t able to do what he’s doing now- staring at his brother’s face, trying to memorize every detail, as if he’ll blink, and Atal will disappear from view. 

He’d forgotten that Atal’s hair was lighter than his- lighter still now, almost as white as the pillow case behind his head. He’d forgotten the scar on his forehead from when he fell playing ball in the street and smacked it against a rock. He’d forgotten about the faint burn marks that lingered on his left cheek. He’d forgotten how much he looked like Mama. 

Ed shuts his eyes and tries to bring Mama’s face to the front of his mind, and then Cyra’s, and then Eashoa’s. They’re blurry now, faded with time, hard-to-reach- like Atal’s own face had been. 

But Atal’s here. His body is here, and Ed can feel his pulse under his fingers, hand wrapped tight around his bony wrist. 

“Don’t cry, brother.” Al says hoarsely, and Ed forces his eyes open to find that he is, in fact, crying. 

He swipes roughly at his tears with the sleeve of his hospital gown and tries for a smile. “I’m alright.” 

“Yeah.” When Atal smiles, it stretches the thin skin over his gaunt face and pulls at his eyes, but Ed thinks it’s more blinding than the mid-summer sun. “We’re gonna be alright.” 

There’s a hesitant knock on the door, and Ed turns, confused. Teacher and Sig had already been by, as had every member of Mustang’s squad that wasn’t currently incapacitated. Winry wouldn’t be in Central for a few days at the earliest, so really, no one should be bothering them, unless it’s another nurse coming to bug Ed into getting back into bed. 

But it’s not a nurse. 

Van Hohenheim stands in the doorway, massive frame filling out most of it. Has the gold of his hair always been streaked with gray? He worries the hem of his filthy shirt, staring at Al unabashedly. 

“Dad!” Al says. “I-I didn’t think you’d come-” 

“I just wanted to make sure you’re safe. That you’re both safe.” He directs the last part to Ed, tilting his head up as if asking for Ed’s approval.

Ed looks at his father for a moment, and then back at his brother, who seems _so happy_ , so _content_ , and Ed can’t break it. He’s never been able to say no to his baby brother. 

“Alright then, don’t block the door.” Ed says gruffly, and Hohenheim’s shoulders drop in relief. 

He sits down on the other side of Al’s bed, and for a minute, seems to just be drinking in Al’s visage. “You look-” his voice cracks in two. “You look so much like your mother, Atal.” 

“Brother says that, too. I-I don’t remember her well,” Atal says, like it’s a confession, like it’s something to be ashamed of, and Ed grips his brother’s hand tighter. 

Hohenheim’s eyes become unexpectedly glassy. He shoves his heels of his hands into his eyes, pushing his glasses up into his hair. Ed distantly wonders if he’ll need glasses, too, some day. 

“There is nothing I can say that will excuse what I’ve done.” Hohenheim’s voice is cracked and raspy. “But please, _please_ , know, if I had known what they were going to do to you- to your mother, to everyone- I would have never left.” 

“Why?” Ed’s voice leaves his mouth without permission, but he meets his father’s surprised look with defiance. “Why did you leave?” 

“To stop this. I knew what Father was capable of, and I needed to stop what happened to my people-” 

“Mama was _so_ convinced you were going to come back, did you know that?” Ed laughs, though it doesn’t feel funny. “She always told us you’d return some day.” 

“I wanted to, Eshkhan,” Hohenheim says desperately. “You don’t _know_ how much I missed you all, and once I learned what happened- I thought I had lost all of you at once, and-”

“Your people.” Al interrupts. 

“-I am so, so, sorry, and- what?”

“Your people.” Al squeezes Ed’s hand again, and Ed recognizes the gesture as both a calming gesture and a warning. “Did they- did they all look like you?” 

Hohenheim seems dumb-founded for a moment. “I- y-yes, for the most part.” He touches his hair. “Most everyone, at least.” 

Ed’s never seen another pair of gold eyes. Only when he’s looking in the mirror. Or now, in his father’s face, which may as well be a mirror. To imagine an entire people that look like him- like his father- it’s nearly as overwhelming as it was when Miles took his glasses off so that Ed could see the deep red of his irises.

“I was just wondering.” Al says. “Mama never told us much about it.”

Hohenheim lets out a hoarse chuckle, dropping his head. “Well, that would be my fault. I never told her much. It was… too painful. Much easier, to pretend it had never existed.” 

“But it did exist.” Ed says fiercely, fingers tightening around Al’s wrist. “It did. Just because it’s gone now doesn’t mean all those people never mattered, or-or, what they believed in, or what they did.”

“No, you’re right.” Hohenheim shakes his head. “But you two- you’re it. There are no other Xerxians.” 

“We’re used to it,” Al shrugs one boney shoulder and gives their father a half-smile. “There aren’t many Ishvalans around, _Baba._ I can’t speak for Ed, but I’d like to know more. Please?” 

“Alright, Atal.” Hohenheim wipes at his eyes again. It seems Ed isn’t the only one unable to say no to his brother. “Alright. Of course.” 

And Hohenheim speaks. 

He speaks of a distant land, of people who worshipped the sun, and in turn, the sun touched their skin, their hair, their eyes. He speaks of bustling markets and the birth of alchemy, of great injustices and even greater works of art. He speaks until darkness has fallen over the hospital room. He speaks until Ed’s head is slumped against Al’s thigh, and he’s snoring softly, and Al’s eyes have fluttered closed. And then he gets up, arranges a spare blanket around his eldest’s shoulders, tucks his youngest in, and quietly puts his coat on. 

He looks back at his sons from the doorway, and he whispers what he wouldn’t dare say in the light of day. 

“ _Ta’burni_ , my sons.” 

* * *

“Atal, _Atal- will you be careful!”_ Ed hisses, holding out his hands in case his idiot brother, who is currently balancing on a chair in the kitchen to reach the lightbulb he’s changing, decides to fall. 

Atal rolls his eyes. “ _Now_ who worries too much? I’m fine, brother!” 

“Are you? Are you fine?” Ed grabs his arm as Atal gets down from the chair and tries not to panic at still being able to feel the bone through his thin layer of muscle. “Look at you! One strong wind and you’re gonna fall and crack open!” 

“Oh my _god,_ Ed, you’ve got to calm down, it’s been almost six months of this!” Winry says as she comes through the front door. It must still be raining out; she’s soaked through. 

“Thank you!” Atal throws a hand towards Winry. “Even Winry agrees, and she’s the queen of over-worrying!” 

“The _what?”_ Winry says, eyes flashing as she wrings her hair out over the sink 

“Wh-what I meant to say was the queen of apple pies?” Atal tries, holding his hands out placatingly. 

“That’s what I thought you said.” She says imperiously. She nods at the covered basket she brought in from town. “I stopped by the post office- there's a package for you both in there.” 

“There is?” Ed tosses the soaked towel atop on the basket towards the sink. Underneath Winry’s assorted automail parts and a pack of cookies from the bakery lies a brown package with no return address.

“Maybe Mrs. Hughes sent something?” Atal peers over his shoulder. 

Ed shakes his head. The looping, distantly familiar handwriting looks nothing like Mrs. Hughes’. He shakes it; nothing rattles around inside, so it’s _probably_ not a bomb. Good enough. Ed tears off the packaging, opens the lid of the box underneath, and feels his breath catch in his throat. 

Nestled inside the box, folded neatly, is a scarf, yellow like the flowers that bloom on the cacti in the summer. Its soft, light material is well-worn and faded, but it’s been taken care of. 

There’s a small card lying on top. 

_Atal and Eshkhan-_

_I’m not sure how much you remember, but this was your mother’s favorite head-wrap. She wore it nearly every day. I took it with me when I left our home. You have lost so much; I wanted you to have something of hers, no matter how small it is. I am working with Miles in Central. We’ve been asked to help with reconstruction. I know that you have both been through a great deal, but when you have rested and recovered, please know you are welcome to join us. Be safe and be well, and I will see you soon, if Ishvala wills it._

Underneath, there is a Central address and a phone number. 

It’s unsigned, but Ed doesn’t need a signature to know who sent this. As if he hadn’t seen his uncle’s handwriting a thousand times over, on manuscripts and written prayers and holy texts. 

“Is that-” Atal asks, one hand resting on the scarf. 

“Yeah.” Ed’s voice cracks. “It’s Mama’s.” 

Ed runs his fingers over the soft material of the scarf and shuts his eyes. When he tries to recall his mother’s face- maybe he’s making it up- but her features seem sharper, somehow. 

* * *

Akhmet doesn’t look anything like he remembers. The crops were further out from town, weren’t they? And the market- it was bigger. There were dozens and dozens of vendors. The square they’ve designated for it seems smaller, somehow. 

And the color of the building material they’re using to reconstruct the Temple is paler than it ought to be. The old temple was dark with age. Ed squints through the doorway into the unfinished chambers inside and wonders if they’re repainted the ceiling already. 

“Man, was this _always_ so itchy?” Atal comes up on his right, tugging at the collar of his tunic. “I swear I don’t remember scratching this much.” 

Ed chuckles and turns to his brother, adjusting the fold of his sash across his shoulder for him. “They weren’t this itchy, these are just new. It’ll get softer as you wash it.” 

When Atal smiles at him, it doesn’t pull at his skin anymore, but it’s just as blinding. 

Across the small square, Ahiqar and Miles are having a quiet, indistinct conversation. Ahiqar says something, and Miles nods, claps Ahiqar on the shoulder, and heads off towards the edge of the square, where Mustang is waiting with his team, shovels and hoes on their shoulders, so that they can go back out to the fields. 

“What do you think?” Ahiqar asks as he walks up. He sweeps a hand around the square. “I know it doesn’t look like much now, but give it a few years.” 

“It’s great!” Atal says enthusiastically. “I got to tour the new school, and it looks _fantastic_!” 

“The school was my project.” Ahiqar runs a hand through his hair. He’s growing it out, and it nearly reaches his shoulders. “Education was so important to Eashoa. And to Cyra. I wanted to make sure it was done right.” 

“It was. Cyra would have loved it.” Atal says. 

“And you, Eshkhan?” Ahiqar asks. “What do you think?” 

Eshkhan tears his eyes away from the temple and faces his uncle, one hand brushing over his sash- a soft, well-worn yellow, crossed with bright red. “You know, years ago, the man who saved us told me he hoped I’d get to go home again. I never thought I would actually be able to. I thought- I thought we’d lost all of this. So what do we do now, you know?” 

Ahiqar’s never been one for affection, but he clasps Eshkhan’s forearm and brings his forehead to his, and Eshkhan has to shut his eyes against the emotions that immediately well up in his chest. 

“Forward.” Ahiqar says when he lets go, and Eshkhan tilts his head up towards the setting sun, reflecting golden off the top of the half-built temple. “We’ll move forward.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there are a few things that REALLY inspired me as I was writing this work:
> 
> [100 Years by Florence + The Machine](https://open.spotify.com/track/4MuoE4t1lp2Nkg7b2218Dr?si=tyBlVpxaTfq6ZxPOS9j9UA)  
> [O Children by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds](https://open.spotify.com/track/29FQEJUtBAnxWEkux39d7I?si=yGvOCtNhS5ykSdEN9yK0gg)  
> this poem, [little prayer by Danez Smith](https://poets.org/poem/little-prayer)  
> and this fantastic [piece of artwork](https://gayroytheory.tumblr.com/post/634535206564610048/i-am-walking-down-a-path-of-no-return-a)  
> and ESPECIALLY [this piece of art](https://raposabranca.tumblr.com/post/637499181152567296/little-prayer-danez-smith-onwards-to-2021)
> 
> thank you so much for reading!!!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!! U can shout at me on my tumblr @ta1k-less


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